Come Away With Me
by SwiftDragonfly
Summary: The story of Jin Ai, a creature of the night, and Jo, a soon to be hunter that learns from the creature. They team up and both learn something valuable along the way- how to survive. Lesbian, Joxoc, ect.
1. Wanted Dead or Alive

**Author Comments:** Starts in season 2 before Jo runs away, I think. I keep getting the time line messed up, so if something pretty big is out of order… that's why.

**Note**: There might be a sequel.

**Summary**: The story of Jin Ai, a creature of the night, and Jo, a soon to be hunter that learns from the creature. They team up and both learn something valuable along the way- how to survive.

**Come Away With Me**

_Carry On My Wayward Son_

"Did you find anything over at the Cape?"

"Dead end."

"… well, shit."

"How's the case going?" The older male asked on the other end, and the female shook her head as she blew warm air into the freezing cold wind. She watched the white smoke rise and then fly, drift to her left, and disappear into the darkness. Her eyes darted to the dark trees on the side of the road, and the car she leaned against bounced under her weight as she moved.

"Shitty." She answered, and she heard a sigh on the other end of the phone. She reached up and started playing with the ends of her hair, dread locks held by large beads and miscellaneous strings and ribbons. Various crosses and other religious tokens were mixed in with her knotted hair.

"You want me to come down and help out cuttlefish?" He asked. For some odd reason the man liked to call people a different kind of animal each time he talked to them. He was just odd himself. He'd been a hunter just as long as Jin Ai, having gotten into the business for similar reasons, and ever since developed odd quirks from his travels. His hand had been crushed while hunting for an alp once, and ever since he has to travel with his girlfriend Alexandria.

"No, no, I can handle it. I'm going to go talk to the morgue lady and see what's up tomorrow. I just feel in the dark with this. Something ain't right."

"Relay the information to me. Maybe putting both of our minds together will help you out."

"You already _know_ the information, though." She whined, and pulled the iPod out of her pocket. Sudoku flashed across the screen and immediately she placed an '8' in one of the boxes.

"I do, but apparently you don't. Relay it and maybe you'll figure something out."

"Okay, fine…. Jane Doe was found in the woods, dead, like the other girls that have been found mutilated over the past hundred years every 10 years. As far as I know, all the hunters on the case have either died or given up on it from lack of information." She spoke, bored, and suddenly shivered. It was cold, and it occurred to her that she might need a jacket. But then she shrugged. If she was going to get eaten, she probably wouldn't need it.

The deserted road was dark and empty; all except her and whatever else was there hunting women. Tall hundred year-old fir trees lined the edge of the road and made it impossible to see beyond a few feet.

"Any guesses as to what it is?" Jay asked on the other end, just goading the female on so as to make him seem smarter when he 'knew the answer'.

"… no." She finally said. She shrugged again as she debated again whether or not to get the jacket in the back seat. It's not far and it _is_ cold.

"Really? No guesses at all? You've got the brain span of a Goldfish."

"Well what is it then, Mr. Know it all?"

"Well, my pet Gorilla, it is a Wendigo."

"Nope." She said immediately, and she could hear the falter in his voice. She shifted in her seat and eventually reached behind the seat to the brown leather jacket sprawled along the fabric seats.

"It has to be. It-"

"It's the right part of the country, but wrong way of killing. They were eaten alive in a short amount of time, not long. Wendigos keep their meat in storage so that they don't run out of it over the years. If the killings weren't on the full moon I'd say it had been a werewolf." She explained as she pulled her jacket on, smiling at both being right and being warm again. The cold wind met her face, now, but not her arms.

"… what's the MO on the victims?"

"Female, early twenties, different races, class, and education background. All abducted after-"

"Sorry Tiger, I've got to go. Pufferfish is calling."

"Kay Jay, I'll chat with you later." She said before hanging up, and then tossed her phone in the air and caught it. After flipping it a few more times in the air, she shifted the brown beanie on her head, got up from the car seat, and took one last look at the menacing forest.

"All girls disappeared here." She muttered to herself. She gave another glance at the windows of her car. She stepped back and shut the car door, the sound echoing in the dark trees and breaking the silence like glass.

Darkness.

Silence.

"They're taken from this very place… this road, anyway, and then their bodies are dumped all around the state. Twice every ten years, over the course of one month. Some day, within the week…." She looked around her again, smirk tugging at her lips as her right hand remained firmly on the gun in her pocket. "Someone is going to be taken."

2.

"I'm just a sweet transvestite… from transsexual, Transvaniaaaa~" She sang into the darkness, then yawning into her hand and resting her head on it again. Her foot tapped to the rhythm and when she didn't sing, she hummed. The car under her played the music from her iPod, medium volume loud enough for her to hear but not loud enough for passing cars to notice. For the most part it was a deserted road; no houses, no midnight walkers, hardly any deer, and she'd only seen one maybe two cars drive past in the past ten hours. Yes, she's been out there for ten hours.

Women had been kidnapped as early as eight at night and late as four in the morning. She wasn't quite sure why the police weren't patrolling this area; even an idiot could figure out the pattern. However, that was not her problem, nor her concern. Her only concern was killing whatever was killing young girls in the middle of the night.

She put her hand on her pocket again, checking for the umpteenth time that it was still there. Her fingers tapped the metal object to the rhythm briefly, then went back to be used as a pillow.

Yep. When it came for her, it would have another thing coming.

The girl yawned into her hand again. She looked at her phone to check the time, which said it was three in the morning.

Damn.

"Thank god for pepsi and songs about transvestites." She said to herself as she reached for the liquid at her side and took another gulp. A twig nearby snapped; her eyes darted to the trees that were shrouded in darkness. A little rabbit perked its ears up near a bush, and hopped closer to the car. "Good thing I'm not searching for the Holy Grail, eh? Or else you'd probably be taking my head off." She joked, and finished her drink before twisting the cap back on and setting it down.

She heard a car driving in the distance, and immediately her guard was up again. She twisted her head to look down the road behind her where headlights were coming into view, where an old car was cruising down the road with oldies music so loud she could hear it a mile away. When it got closer it apparently saw her car and pulled over to the side of the road just ahead of her.

Damn.

Whoever it was turned off their engine and it clicked to silence. A second later two men opened the side doors and stepped out. They leaned against the frame of the car and looked at her. "You having some car trouble?" They were near invisible in the dark.

"You the police?" She asked, and eyed them warily as they stepped away from the car and shut the doors. They walked towards her. "What are you lads doing all the way out here? It's, what, three in the morning?"

"FBI." The one who had been driving stated, and both of them pulled out their badges. The girl raised her flashlight and pointed it at them, to confirm what they were, then clicked it off and shrugged her shoulders. The one who had spoken had short brown hair, and the other one had dark slightly longer hair, and maybe a little taller. She couldn't tell anything else without proper light.

The song 'Monster Mash' started playing from her car speakers.

"So what are you doing out here?" The taller one asked. He glanced at the forest, suspicious of the intimidating darkness that resonated from it, and looked back at her.

"Enjoying the morning air. It's really peaceful this time of night, ya know?" She answered. Neither of them bought it. Stupid FBI agents.

"Miss you're going to have to come with us. You're the second person we've pulled off this road tonight and it's a dangerous week." The shorter one ordered, and stepped closer.

"Stop, racist bastards." She told him, and he froze. "Like hell I'm going anywhere with a couple of strangers."

"How are we racist? You're at a crime scene. You either come with us or vacate the premises."

"You're the feds and you're white. And this is public property. Jack ass."

"Are you antagonizing an officer?" The taller one asked. "We can just take you in right now-"

"What are your names? I'd like to be able to tell my boss what knuckle heads decided to impose on _my_ ongoing investigation." She asked as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a wallet. She flipped it open. They shined a flashlight on it. A grin grew across her face.

"Agent Johnson and Gills. And what is your name, agent?" The shorter one, Agent Johnson, asked. Something moved in the trees, and all three reached for their weapons. Three flashlights were pointed in one area: a bush. Another rabbit with spots all over it hopped out of the bushes.

"It's just a rabbit. Place is full of them."

"… You mean that rabbit?" Gills asked as he pointed at a half eaten rabbit by the wheels of the woman's car. She leaned over the hood and looked at it. She mentally cursed and tried to figure out when, whatever did that, got so close- while keeping a cool façade to the FBI.

"Mother fucking coyote got that close and I didn't even hear it. Sneaky bastard." She cursed, and leaned back against the windshield again. The FBI agents looked each other before looking back at the girl.

"Until we get this cleared up you're coming with us." Anderson said as he stepped closer, but she put a hand up and shushed him.

"Sh… did you hear that?" She whispered, and they all stopped moving. They listened and looked around the darkness. She clicked her flashlight off. The boys did the same. They waited.

Silence.

"I don't hear anything."

"Sh."

In the distance they heard a scream, and simultaneously the two men turned and ran towards the sound. Down the road they could see head lights.

"Damn it!" The woman yelled, and jumped off of the hood and started running towards the parked car. The guys were a little faster but she kept up. When they got there they found an empty car, blood, and a ringing cell phone- no girl. They heard another scream in the woods and started running again. One of them insisted that she stay behind, but she easily bypassed them and headed for where they thought they heard the girl. "Let her go!" she screamed, but once the small group stopped running, they realized that the mysterious girl had stopped screaming.

They breathed heavily and tried to catch their breath, all the while looking around. They were now in unfamiliar territory, chasing something faster than them, and couldn't see shit.

"Stay close." One of the men told the girl, and she nodded but wasn't listening. They stood back to back, straining their ears to hear the girl or creature, but no such luck. All they could hear was their own breathing and the occasional cricket.

"What kind of Wendigo let's her scream twice?" She muttered to herself. One of the agents asked her to repeat that, but she ignored them and started walking back to the road. They could see the abducted woman's headlights from where they were.

"Are you a hunter?" Johnson asked as he and his partner followed her.

"I take it you are as well?" She asked without looking back. The pair exchanged glances before looking back at the strange dreadlocked woman. One of them almost slipped as they walked, the rain from the previous day making it slippery and muddy.

"Yeah, actually. You were using yourself as bait, weren't you? Going Rambo and taking the monster on head on?" One of them asked.

"Indeed I was."

"So what is it, then? So far we've only come across dead ends."

"Don't know, don't care. Goin ta kill the monster and," She stopped and turned towards them. "Save the gal." She said with a wink, and then faced forward again and kept walking. Her clever feet barely avoided tripping over a root and falling into a puddle of mud and, although they didn't see or notice, blood.

"Keep your guard up, we're not out of the woods yet. Literally." The taller one advised. Neither of them paid much mind to him.

"So you're, a, into chicks?"

"So why are ye boys out here at three in the morning? Little late to start patrol, don't ya think?"

"We started driving a couple hours ago. Bobby, a friend of ours, told us about the case earlier today." The taller one answered, and eventually they made it back to the road. They all started walking towards their cars, but when they saw something in the middle of the road, they stopped. The cold air seemed to rise at the excitement and nipped hungrily at their skin like mosquitoes made of ice. They all strained their eyes at the creature, barely able to see it in the darkness.

A man, only his shadowed figure visible in what little light there was, stood in the middle of the asphalt road. He was probably a good ten feet from their cars, an object (what looked like a knife) in his hand. It was like those scenes in a movie where someone is caught red handed with a knife, and just stands there, awestruck. They all pulled out their weapons again.

"Where's the girl?" The woman asked, but as soon as the words left her mouth he bolted into the forest with speed much faster than their own. "He's too fast for us to catch. Don't bother running after him."

"So we just let him go?"

"Yep. We'll get him next time." She told him, sounding much calmer than she felt.

When they reached their vehicles, the woman cursed as loud as she could yell and kicked at her flattened tires. So much for 'calm'. She was tempted to also kick the other man's tires, but seeing as they were probably her ride back to the motel, she refrained. Inside her car the stereo was smashed, rabbit bits smeared across the hood where she had been laying (the rabbits parts matching the placement of her limbs when she'd been laying down before), and like mentioned before, tires out of air.

"Looks like you royally pissed whatever it was off. At least that tells us one thing." Gills commented, and the girl turned towards him with a death glare.

"_And what the hell is that_?"

"This thing is smart. It knows you were waiting for it, and it was pissed."

"And why the hell did it kill my car but not yours?"

"It wants you out of here, and we're your only out." The other man answered with a toothy grin. The girl kicked the tire one more time before going into the beat up car to get her things.

3.

The next morning she woke up with a pounding headache and a talking door. Wait, no, screaming headache and pounding door. Someone was banging out the door.

Really, _really_ loudly.

And yelling at her.

So, she had a headache, and talking and banging door. Wait, wait, that still doesn't sound right….

"Hey! Princess! Wake up!"

"Do you have any idea what time it is?" She yelled as she rolled from one end of the red blanketed bed to the other. When she was within reading distance of the clock, she confirmed her suspicions. Early. "It's 3 in the fucking morning!"

"… it's 3 in the fucking _afternoon_." Another voice told her, and she groaned as she looked at her clock again. The numbers '0' '3' '0' and '2' all glared at her in bright red, blinking furiously and quickly. She tried to blink away the sleep and quietly cursed again.

Instead of yelling again and getting her voice hoarse, or worse, worsening her headache, she rolled again to her right and fell onto the ground with a loud 'thump'. Her shoulder cracked loudly, but not painfully. Then she crawled to the door, fixed her crooked beanie, and used the door handle to help her stand. After she was standing at the door, she looked down at her wrinkled shirt and pajama pants littered with printed hats. With a shrug, she finally pulled the door the open. The lock on it interfered, so she had to push it closed again, unlock it, then actually open it.

She looked at the two with raised eyebrows for a second, then yawned. When she yawned, she remembered that the shirt she was wearing said 'dykes and hats rocking it out'. She got it as a birthday present from some girl in high school. "You're the, uh, hunters I met the other day, right?"

The pair exchanged a quick glance but then looked back to her and smiled. "Yeah, I'm Dean, this is Sam. We didn't catch-"

"Jin Ai."

"Sorry?"

"My name's Jin Ai. So, what is it you boys wanted me for?" She asked as she leaned tiredly against the door and yawned again into her hand. A hint of a German accent laced her tired voice.

"We can come back later, but we just wanted to know if you wanted to work together on the case or separately. We could probably get a lot more done with three heads than two and-"

"Sure, sure. Give me 'bout twenty minutes to, uh, get changed an stuff. Why don't we meet up at the little Handle Diner two blocks from here, say 3:30?" She suggested, and after they gave a nod and try to say something else, she shut the door and plopped back down on the bed.

4.

Forty minutes later they were in the diner, ordering greasy foods and drinking their coffee. The girl had changed into a more professional pinstriped suit, pulled her dreads into a ponytail, and still wore the brown beanie on her head. The dark circles under her eyes had been covered with make up, but alas, it couldn't be completely concealed. Both of the hunters sitting across from her glanced at her every few seconds when she got there, each wondering if she had drunken another bottle whiskey while they'd been waiting.

"As you can tell, I'm not a morning person." She commented a few minutes after she'd gotten there, coffee snuggled between her palms as she sipped at it quietly.

"It's not morning." Dean commented.

"Precisely." She commented, and didn't miss the confused or amused expressions on their faces. After she took another small sip of her coffee, she reached over to the suitcase on the chair next to hers, and opened it up. Her hands quickly skimmed through the papers they knew so well to find the ones she was looking for, and when they did, quickly and expertly snatched them out.

"Should we wait until the food gets here or-?"

"Lets get the formalities out of the way. I don't want to get grease on my papers." She explained as she pulled a near empty folder from the suitcase, put the papers inside, and then snapped the suit case closed. She tossed the folder to the taller one, Sam, and quickly brought the cup of coffee to her lips again.

"You seem very… efficient." Dean said with a smirk, and then looked at the folder in his brother's hands. Both of them blinked in mild surprise at the information before them.

"How did you get all of this? How did you get the drunkard husband to tell you any of this? Isn't he in prison?" Sam asked as he looked at the notes typed out before him, and skimmed through the papers with an incredulous gaze.

"It's all useless. None of it narrows down what _exactly_ what took them. The only thing I've narrowed down is that it can't be passed as a human."

"What do you mean?"

"All of the women that were taken were taken at night on a specific road… on a specific week… it doesn't fit the MO of someone that would pass as a human."

"A spirit, maybe?" Dean asked.

"Never heard of a cannibal spirit. My closest guess is a shapeshifter, but I haven't found _any_ leftover skin anywhere, or glowy eyed camera people."

"Did you just say that they can't pass for human?"

"Here you go, miss," The waiter said as he set a plate of fries and grilled cheese in front of her. He gave Sam and Dean their plates, and before leaving gave them a smile and told an 'amusing' joke. His bright and perfect smile nearly blinded them.

"The fries here are to die for." She stated as she started to eat her food. "You're right Dean, I did-"

"I'm Sam, he's Dean." _Sam_ corrected.

"Whatever. Yeah, I meant a different kind of shapeshifter. There's a weird kind that, I can't remember the name of it but my uncle hunted its kind before, where it's a kind of animal that turns into other animals. It shape shifts into other animals. It can, uh, kind of shapeshift into a human _like_ creature, thing, but not completely. If we got a better look at it last night, we'd see that it didn't look human at all."

"And… they're known for killing people?" Dean asked.

"Not usually, but you can't trust that. Alps are harmless but I've seen one go insane from too many adventures and go on a murderous rampage."

"Alps? From German folklore?"

"Yup." She said before taking a huge bite out of her sandwich. "I'm going to meet with the morgue lady at about 5 and check out the bodies."

"Would you mind if we tagged along? You know, so that we can catch whatever is doing this." Dean asked as he tried his 'charming' smile on her, sauce lining the edges of his mouth.

"I prefer to do these things on my own."

"How are you going to get there?"

"Driving."

"With what car?" Sam asked with a wide smirk. The girl winced under his stare and slowly chewed her less than adequate sandwich.

5.

"So we're basically bringing… everything." Sam confirmed as his brother and new hunting partner loaded up on weapons. They were all in the Winchester's room, weapons sprawled out on the beds, (Jin Ai's on one, their's on the other) and loading up. Well, Dean and her were loading up, Sam was trying to talk them out of it. "Dean, we don't even know what it is."

"We know it kills people, and we know _when_ it kills them." He said as he checked one of his guns for bullets before putting it in his back pocket. "We don't have another choice."

"Uh, yeah we do. We make sure that no one goes on that road tonight and avoid attacking something that is ten times stronger than us. It knows more about us than we know about it."

"Nuh uh. Asian said that it might be a shape shifter, and we know what shape shifters don't like."

"Would stop calling me 'Asian'?" Jin Ai interrupted, but the male only smiled cheekily and reached for a silver knife. "I'm German and African too, ya know."

"How about… 'Germafricasian?"

"… That sounds worse, ass hole."

He only smiled again and retuned his attention to his brother. "Don't worry so much. Besides, it's three against one. We can handle this, Sam."

"Will you even stop and think for a minute? We don't even know how many of them there are."

"Don't worry so much Sammy-" Jin Ai interrupted.

"It's _Sam_."

"Sammy, Sam, Dean, Philaptorapter, _whatever_. Hunters have a tough job. Grow some and grab a gun."

"… this is stupid." He finally stated, and stomped out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him. Both of the hunters looked at the door he left through.

"What's up his ass?" Dean asked, and looked back to her. She shrugged. He shrugged in return and went back to polishing one of his knives.

"You're his brother, shouldn't you know?"

"… So you like girls, huh? Ever considered a three-way?"

6.

About ten minutes later Sam walked back into the room, a smile stretched across his face. "I just called the authorities. That stretch of road will be closed off for the next two days." He said as he took off his coat and hung it on the back of the chair. Both of the hunters stared at him, and watched as he strutted across the room to the bathroom and shut the door.

"… when I talked to them, they said they weren't going to do shit on that road."

"Should we still go? It'll be tricky with the cops roaming around." Dean asked. "I mean, if they're blocking the roads, I doubt anything will happen."

She shrugged, a smirk tugging at the corners of her lips. She cocked one of the shotguns. "I'm going, with or without you dead weights."

7.

The next day, after a night of unsuccessful hunting and almost getting caught several times, they went to a saloon. Not just any saloon, mind you, but a saloon in the freaking middle of _nowhere_. It took them about two hours and by the time they got there, the place was closed.

And yet, they strolled right in anyway. There were a total of three cars there, one of which was the Winchester's, and the other two blue and faded red pick-up trucks. The air was cold and rigid, the old wood building looked desolate and tired. The building didn't look bad or unkept, but it just looked old; it had taken its share of fights and drunken haps over the years.

The door was unlocked, but it took an extra 'nudge' to actually get it open. Inside was the usual: bar stools, alcohol, tables, chairs, etc. There was even a bartender there, standing behind the counter with a bottle of beer in front of her. On the ceiling was a devil's trap made to look like decoration, or just blend in, and hiding amongst the random pictures hung along the walls were crosses and other 'anti-supernatural beings' gadgets.

Jin Ai frowned, realizing that it was a place where _hunters_ gathered. It was a place where _hunters_ got together for drinks, conversed over how to kill things, got in little fights and did stupid drunk things.

"Hey boys, it's been a while." The blond with the beer greeted, and proceeded to give the pair a warm hug. The place smelled weird. "Hi, I'm Ellen." She greeted the girl a moment later, and shook hands with her. They both smiled but didn't keep eye contact.

"Jin Ai."

"Jin Ai… now why does that sound so familiar?" She asked, and the other shrugged as she put her hands back in her pockets. She promptly took one back out to pull her hat down.

"Um… you might know my uncle, Jason. Jason Leopard."

"Huh… ya know, I think I've met him, but I can't remember his face. Or at least heard of him. Anyway, do you guys want a beer? On the house."

"Sure." They all said at the same time, and pulled up a seat. Just as the dark haired girl started to play with the bracelet on her wrist, they heard loud footsteps from behind one of the doors, and soon saw a young girl, blond, run out. Her eyes instantly connected with one of the Winchester boys, and a smile sprouted along her face.

"Dean, Sam!"

"Hey Jo."

"Hey." They brothers greeted. "Jo, this is Jin Ai, Jin Ai, this is Jo. We met her on a hunt."

"You're a hunter?" Jo asked, and the girl nodded.

8.

It was the last night, and so far a second girl hadn't been taken. They didn't find anything out from Jo or Ellen Harvelle the week before, but they did find out from talking more with the locals that the chief of police was a pretty shady character. Most of the locals were pretty spooked by the legend they had; twice every ten years, the ghost of Mary Williams comes back to take revenge on the strippers that killed her for money in the early 30's. She eats their livers and muscle because she's starving, since she never ate anything when she was alive. Some say she never died and still lives in the woods to kill young girls. The other version is that Mary Williams kills the girls to embarrass the police of the town, since they were customers and raped some of the strippers. Since the police have yet to find the killer, more and more people hate the police, and thus more and more people leave town.

Well, it surely wasn't a ghost. No sulfur and whatnot. So that busts the ghost theory.

No matter what it was, the three hunters were still walking along the road's edge, sometimes wandering into the trees in search of it. They tried to stay quiet while they patrolled, but they all knew that whatever it was could probably hear them anyway. Once, at about midnight or later, Dean got spooked and shot at a deer, causing all of them to raise their weapons and get ready in response.

"… That was, uh, a pretty scary deer, Dean." She girl joked after they all circled the dead animal with their flashlights.

"Well, if it's a shape shifter, it could be… don't move." Dean spoke from a few feet away, and pointed his flashlight at something next to her. The Winchester brothers both faced her, and her eyes widened in fear. A hot breath started to breathe down her neck. Something started to slither onto her waist and across her stomach.

"I'm going to kill you co-" She couldn't finish her sentence before something hit her head and started running before either hunters could get a good shot.

The second girl had been taken.

8.5

Dean cursed when they finally had to stop running blindly through the forest. The two shined their lights into the dark trees and tried to see something that could help them. They found nothing. "Jin Ai!"

"It took her."

"Yeah. Jin Ai!"

"Dean, it took her! From right under our noses!"

"I know!"

"I told you we shouldn't have brought her."

"Would you shut up? She's a good hunter and she can handle herself. Jin Ai!"

9.

She woke up with the usual pounding head ache. No surprise there. What was surprising was that something was wrapped tightly around the groggy woman's wrists to keep them bound together, it was _freezing_, and her body was soaked head to toe. She couldn't hear anything except maybe a gurgling stream nearby. Her body convulsed at the cold temperature.

The girl shivered awake, and opened her blurry eyes to a bright light. She turned her head and tucked her face into the leaf covered ground, only to realize it was also covered in dirt and jerked away. Immediately she snapped her eyes open again and looked around her, trying to figure out where she was.

She was in a forest, next to some kind of berry bush, surrounded by oak trees. There was a bright light being shined on her, like one of those lights used in photo shoots or movies. When she tried to sit up she cried out in pain and fell back down. Her head ache worsened horribly and her right shoulder felt dislocated. "I'm going to fucking KILL YOU!" She screamed as loud as she could, and curled up into a half ball. As she curled up, she tried to feel for her weapons, anything to defend herself with, but found none. Whatever took her took all of her knives and guns with it.

She cursed again, a little quieter, and tried to sit up again.

"That won't do you any good." A man spoke as he walked out from behind a tree. When she looked to see who it was, her eyes widened a little, and she tilted her head to the side. It took her a second for her eyes to adjust.

"… why the fuck are _you_ part of this?"

In the distance, the faint call of her name from the familiar Winchester brothers met her ears. A smirk flitted across her lips while a scowl covered his.

"He's going to kill them."

"Who?"

"Kelton." He answered. "Unless I eat the parts of your body that he rips off… he'll kill everyone in the town. All of them. I can't let that happen."

"Sherriff… ew. What the _hell_ is wrong with you?"

"He killed the Sheriff before me, you know. And the Deputy. He kept killing until… until one of us would do as he said." He explained, and walked towards her. He turned the light off. "I don't know why, but it likes to take pictures of its victims before it kills them. It's already gotten yours."

"Sheriff… let me tell you something," She said, and tried to move so that the ropes didn't hurt her injured shoulder as much. "If you… if you untie me, I promise that I won't kill you after I kill that creature."

He chuckled. "You know, I've heard women beg for their lives, give excuses, but no. You're different. You go for the intimidation route."

"This isn't intimidation," she growled. "It's a warning."

The man laughed again, but then two seconds later, his scream rang out through the dark woods and the Winchester brothers stopped walking.

About five minutes later, they heard someone walking towards them, and when they raised their flashlights, they saw the kidnapped girl walking towards them. A deformed head of a dark creature was hanging from her fisted hand, the skin crawling off the bone and creeping towards the ground. One of its eyes was missing. "Thanks for distracting it with your yelling. Couldn't have done it without you." She said with a smile, and tossed the head at their feet. They both looked at her skeptically, but followed when she started walking back to the road. Well, where they thought was the road. It took about a half hour to navigate back to the car.


	2. Come Away With Me

1.

"Wow… not many female hunters come in here. Almost all of them are guys."

"Not surprising. It's a tough job." The dark haired girl commented before taking another swig of her beverage. The blond nodded and leaned in closer.

"So, what kinds of creatures do you hunt? I mean, some hunters specialize in some creatures while others just… dabble in a bit of everything." She asked with a flip of her hair, and got so close that the other could smell her mint-scented breath.

"For a while I only hunted vampires… but those are pretty much gone."

"Why those?"

"Killed someone close to me. I've tried to hunt down one specifically, but he's either dead or hiding."

"Do you know what his name was?"

"Cory Desmark. He was turned when he was twenty-four in 1924 in Birmingham, Alabama. Whoever turned him also turned his girlfriend, and they were an item for some odd years until a hunter killed her. He killed the hunter some time after dat. I don't have any current information on him, though." She said with a sigh, and the blond smiled suddenly.

"Hey, you know what? I know someone that hunts vampires, and he probably knows him."

"Who? I've talked to a lot of hunters." She asked warily, and blushed when the girl leaned in close and brushed her lips against her ear. The blush deepened when she happened a glance at her cleavage.

"I'll tell you if you let me come with you."

"… what?"

"I'm a great hunter, but hunters usually work best in pairs. I need someone to teach me more about hunting, but my mom won't let me."

"Whose this hunter you're talking about? The one that knows Desmark?"

"I'll tell you his name if you let me go with you on your next hunt. I promise I won't be a bother, just please, _please,_ let me go with you. I'll pay for all my stuff, I have my own weapons- I even have my own journal."

"How old are you?"

"… twenty-one. How old are you?" She countered, and the dark haired woman looked down at her beverage and silently thought for a moment.

"Twenty-six…" She muttered. "How long has this hunter been hunting?"

"Years. He's a damn good hunter."

"It's not Gildtrude?"

"Nope. Didn't he pass away a couple years ago?" Jo asked, and the other nodded. The blond bit her lower lip and moved a couple inches away to give her space. She was still close, but as she sat there with her palm against her chin and elbow on the table, she couldn't help but smile. The female hunter picked up the bottle and took another swig of it.

"The person you're telling me about better be a damn good source, or else you _will _regret it. Does your mother know you want to go scallabanting off to hunt some ghosts?"

"When do we leave?"

"That's not an answer.… I still need to get a car. Call me in a couple days and meet somewhere… not here. Out of town preferably."

"What, are you afraid of my mom?" She asked, and the hunter shook her head.

"No… but my uncle told me about her. So no, _'m not scared _of her, I'm terrified." She corrected. The blond rolled her eyes.

2.

That night Jin Ai groaned as she fell onto the bed, and heaved a heavy sigh. She lay sprawled on the sheets for some time, just staring at the ceiling, and eventually kicked off her shoes. "I shouldn't have agreed to that. This will end up two ways. Number one: We sleep together, then she kills me. Number two: we sleep together, I kill her."

She stretched and reached for her phone that lay idly on the bedside table, to call her uncle Jay and tell him what happened, but she couldn't reach. When her fingers failed to grasp the small plastic device, she sided with the idea of calling him later, and not bother moving her sore limbs further to get it.

She knew she would have to move anyway, though, to get the _game_ over with, but the idea of moving other parts of her body maybe two inches was still unsettling and disturbing. Oh the horror of moving two inches to the left. Oh the horror.

"If my arm wasn't in this sling… nah, I still wouldn't get it."

3.

"This is so _cool_!" Jo said for the tenth time in the last hour, and the older woman rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, yeah. This isn't a field trip, you know. I'm not going to treat you like a kid, you're an actual hunter. If you fuck up, it's your problem, not mine. Now look through the newspaper and see what kind of jobs are open." She said as she tossed a newspaper from the previous day to her. Her eyes stayed on the busy road as she navigated out of the busy city, rain pattering on the windshield and obstructing her vision. The new used car, a silver SUV Hybrid, was much larger than her last car and more difficult to use- she was terrified of accidentally running over some of the little cars running about, such as a little Volvo just ahead of her going 20 miles under the speed limit.

"I know, I know, okay." She said as she opened the paper she'd been handed and started sifting through it. Her blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she sported a leather jacket with jeans. For comfort or for style, the older woman had no idea.

"I circled some possibilities. Haunting over in Connecticut, strange murders in Wyoming, strange occurrences and sightings in Rode Island, and a few softer ones. I personally like to go for left overs."

"Go for what?"

"The cases that either other hunters give up on, get killed on, or don't even show up on most hunter's radars. I talked to my uncle yesterday, who said that a couple of hunters went up to Wyoming for the murders, but only added up the body count. That's something I usually go for." She explained, and tapped her fingers against the unfamiliar steering wheel. It was leather, not plastic. "Would you be up for that, or go for something less dangerous?" Jin Ai already knew the answer to her question, but it didn't stop her from asking. They were already on the road to Colter Bay Village, and the new little hunter wanted to kill something.

4.

"We can take shifts, if you want. We don't have to stay here for the night. I can drive for a while." Jo insisted as the dark haired girl smiled at the man behind the counter and asked for a room. "The more time we waste the more people get hurt."

"Are you two spies or something? Lesbians off to save the world or something?" The pimple faced teenager asked as he handed Jin Ai a room key, perverted ideas running through his tiny little brain. Jo flipped him the bird while the other woman just rolled her eyes and left. The blond had half a mind to tell him off, but was dragged away by the wrist.

"That guy was a creep."

"You act like you've never been in a straight bar."

"I don't pick up many women in bars, _surprisingly_."

"Really? That _is_ surprising." The other commented, not paying attention anymore and focused more on getting to their room to take a nice hot shower. A nice _long_ one. With their backpacks already strung onto their shoulders, they reached their room, '06', and walked in. Jo was still talking.

"… my mom always thought it was a phase and whatnot, and I do like guys and all, but girls are so much cooler, you know? And I mean, women are amazing, and men are just-" Before she could ramble off more random bits of her life, Jin reached her hand to the back of the girl's neck and pulled her head down to her own in a kiss. After a moment, Jin pulled away, shut the door, and threw her pack onto one of the twin sized beds.

Jo stayed quiet as she watched her move around the room; closing the curtains, put a few charms near the door and window, get a few things out of her bag. Eventually she looked up at the blond, who just stood there watching, and smiled.

"Relax. Get some sleep, and we'll be leaving early in the morning. I'm going to take a shower and then run to the store to get some food for when we get there, since they won't have any food and any food we buy there will be crazy expensive." She explained, and when the girl nodded in comprehension, she walked over to the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

Jo stood there a moment, staring at the bathroom door and wondering whether or not to go in. She had seduced the woman into letting her come along for the trip, after all. When she heard the water start running, however, she just shrugged and dumped her bag on the floor, turned and flopped onto the other bed. She kicked her shoes off and laced her hands together behind her head. As she stared at the ceiling, her thoughts wandered to the hunt, and the idea of finally going on an adventure caused her to smile.

5.

"Where were you?" the blond asked as she took the coffee and scone off the little table. As she munched on it, she watched the woman walk straight for the bathroom. As she messed with some make up things- the door was open so they could see each other- she shrugged.

"Out and about."

"Cuz, you weren't back when I went to bed, and that was at about 2 AM, and I woke up at 6. It's 7 now… This is delicious." Jo explained as she nibbled at the food and gulped down the coffee.

"Darling Jo," she spoke as she applied mascara. "I am letting you hunt with me out of the compassion of my heart, and because you have information I need. Ask too many questions and I'll leave you here."

Jo didn't say anything. Jin Ai smiled smugly.

"The stores closed at about midnight, so after I got food and put them in the trunk, I went to see a movie. It's something I usually do before a hunt to cool down." She explained. After she was done in the bathroom she walked back into the main room to join the other female for breakfast. After they finished eating, which was surprisingly quiet, Jo went over to her bag and carried it to the bathroom.

A few seconds later a short scream was heard, and laughing erupted from Jin Ai. The blond stepped out of the bathroom with a little spring toy in her hand, threw it at her, and then walked back to the shower.

6.

"Wow, it's so beautiful here. Is this actually a hunt, or is it a date?" The blond asked as she stared out the window. The other chuckled.

"The most beautiful things are usually the most deadly." She commented, and the other fell silent as she stared out into the sunset that cast shadows and shades of purples and pinks along the horizon. Soon they turned off from the freeway and entered onto a little side road, the trees making the view of the sunset now impossible, and soon after turned onto a dirt road. "So, Jo, how gay are you?"

"What do you mean?" The blond asked, caught off guard.

"Are you bisexual or gay?"

"Bisexual."

"Darn." She commented, and Jo looked at her curiously.

"What, are you one of those-"

"No, no, I have a large suspicion that whatever we're hunting will use attractive men to get the better of us, like they used female hookers to get the other hunters." She explained as she tapped against the leather steering wheel, glancing to the pink cheeked girl and back to the road again.

"Just because I like guys, doesn't mean- God that guy is _so_ cute! We have to buy some firewood later." She spoke, getting sidetracked by a man on the side of the road holding a sign saying 'firewood $10 a bundle'. He smiled and winked at the girls in the car as they drove past, and Jin Ai couldn't help but start laughing.

"That wasn't one of your finest moments, little Jo. Doesn't it strike you as suspicious that someone would be selling firewood in _October_? Who the hell goes camping in October?"

"I don't know… us? Maybe there's an event going on nearby and a bunch of people are camping?"

"We're not camping; we're staying in a cabin. Big difference."

"Whatever… last time I was here I was with my dad. It's a lot more colorful than I remember it."

"Probably because it's fall." Lai said with a chuckle, and the other punched her arm. "Hey! No hitting the driver!"

"No making fun of shotgun! It was October when I last came here, too!"

"Whatever." The older female concluded with a shrug, and chuckled when the other girl pouted and looked back out the window. As it got darker the driver turned on the head lights and turned on the radio. Immediately the blond started fussing about the kind of music –Kesha- and resulted in the dreadlocked woman turning the volume up to full blast and singing along with it.

This resulted in a fight that concluded with the rule of no music in the car.

7.

That night they went over the information surrounding the case extensively. In a way the older female just wanted let the blond run wild and get herself almost killed so that she would be less excited about the case. She might even want to leave her alone afterwards- Jin Ai wanted this so that she'd learn her lesson- but alas discovered too late that she had a soft spot for her. As much as she wanted to she couldn't help but give the blond little hints on how to hunt, how to avoid getting killed, how to do things the right way.

Not that this did any good. The blond ignored her advice for the most part. She was giddy, excited, and itching to kill something. (Her excitement having something to do with her dad, no doubt.) She listened to the basic information, but anything extra went in one ear and out the other.

The older woman sighed as she wrote down the information on the different pieces of paper and linked them all together. "It's… a wendigo, right?" Jo asked as she looked through her own skimpy little journal of supernatural creatures.

"… why does everyone always assume it's a Wendigo? They're really not that common."

"Then what is it?'

"Some kind of water sprite. A Kappa, Nixe, mutant water snake…. I think it's a Kappa." Jin Ai told her and mentally winced when the blond nodded and agreed. 'You're going to die, idiot. Based on this information it should be a Nix.' She thought to herself, and sighed again as she put away the pieces of information and got out her briefcase to retrieve information on Kappas. (Jin Ai can be a little full of herself, if you haven't been able to tell) Before the blond could get a good look at the information and realize that the other woman had put in wrong information, she was walking towards the fridge and humming an old tune.

"It's not like we're hunting it tonight, are we? You should relax a little." She says as she pulls open the door and searches through the stocked fridge for her soda. Jin Ai smiles and shakes her head, (a stupid hunter is a dead hunter) smiling as she gets a good view, and almost laughing when she realizes that she's swaying to the tune. After finding her soda, she walked over to the cd player on the other side of the room and turned it on to a radio station.

The other hunter shrugged as she organized the papers already out and waited for a good song to come on. Most of the stations were on commercial, but after a few seconds of static, Norah Jones' voice filled the small cabin. The blond smiled as she turned up the volume and danced over to the other female. She held out her hand.

"May I have this dance?" She asked, "Come away with me," she sang, and pulled at the woman's hand until she was standing. Jin Ai put her hands on the girl's hips and the other pulled her arms around her neck. They both slow danced to the tune, swaying back and forth, and quietly enjoyed each other's embrace.

A loud knocking at the door disturbed the peaceful dance, and both stepped away with a blush and slight frown. Jo skipped over to the door, Jin Ai cursing at how careless her movements were, and followed after her. She made sure her silver knife was in the back pocket of her jeans. At the door was a teenage boy; little younger than Jo, short curly brown hair, brown eyes, and almost glowing pale skin. He smiled to the two women, shirtless and hands in his pockets.

"Hi, I'm Branden." He greeted as he held out a hand, and both of them shook it.

"I'm Jo, this is-"

"Haley." The other interrupted. "Nice to meet you."

"And to you too. I just wanted to say that if you need anything fixed, yard work done, wood chopped, I'm just down the road and trying to earn money for college." He said, and as he spoke, Jin Ai noticed that the hem of his pants were wet.

"If we need any help, we'll be sure to give a call." Jo said with a cute smile and nervous glance at her shoes.

"Okay. Well, I'll see you two around. Night." He said, and left the pair staring back.

"I see why the other hunters were caught off-guard."

8.

"Come away with me…" Jin Ai hummed as they hiked along the lake's edge. She was pleasantly surprised when she found out that Jo wasn't squeamish around insects and could hike without trampling too many innocent ferns down in the process. She was, however, a big conversationalist- but she could look past that. So long as she can zip it when she needs to it's not a huge problem.

Judging by how little the trail was worn down, they both guessed that the trail wasn't very popular. This was the shorter one of the two- the other one went into the mountain and to more touristy sites- while this one stayed along the lake's edge and sometimes trailed into the water, forcing them to go alternative routes.

It was weird when they came across another couple walking along the path; both going the opposite direction. Jin Ai noticed that the hem of their pants were also wet, and although greeted them warmly as they passed, watched them closely.

9.

Later that day Jin Ai made the excuse to leave and left the female alone at the cabin. She was a little worried about the blond, but she needed information and couldn't get it with the little inquisitive hunter breathing down her neck. First she drove to the little store about a mile away, to get more soda for her alibi; then she drove into town and started asking around.

She was surprised at how many people had wet pants. As in, the bottoms of their pants… as in, the _hem_ of their pants. Right.

It was Saturday evening, she guessed that it was as busy as it was going to get. The streets weren't full of people, but it was hardly scarce of human life. Something told her that most tourists were avoiding this vacation spot on the account that so many people had been drowned in the area. The dreadlocked woman noticed that there were two anomalies about this place; firstly, half the people had wet pants (it hadn't rained recently to her knowledge and the ground was dry), and secondly, _everyone_ was coupled up aside from a few children.

After chatting with a young woman outside the pet store, about the recent murders and not getting much information, she went inside a little antique shop. Most of the things in there were junk: consisting of ancient broken clocks, and inch thick dust covering century old tacky-furniture. It was also insanely red- the walls and carpet were red- and brown ill decorated furniture. The only people inside were a young couple, looking to be in their twenties, and an old man looking to be in his eighties. As Jin Ai walked into the shop, all eyes went to her when the bell on the door rang. She smiled awkwardly and let them go back to whatever they were looking at.

She looked at their feet, closed the door behind her, and locked it. "Can I help you, miss?"

"You Nixes mind telling me what's going on here? Or do I have to kill one of you to get answers?" She asked with a smile and tilt of her head. All three of them stared at her, wide eyed like deer in head lights, but made no move to answer. "Here's the thing," She continued as she took a step closer to them. "I don't mind that a bunch of you are living here. I don't give a damn; however, I'm betting that _one_ of your kind has gone insane, which isn't uncommon with supernatural creatures stuck in a human world. So who is it?"

"… It wasn't one of us!" The girl blurted as she gripped the purse strapped along her body and wrung it in her hands. The man at her stepped forward and extended an arm in front of her protectively.

"You hunters don't care if we're innocent or guilty, just _different._" The blond male hissed as his eyes shifted to a dark blue –much like a demon's eyes- color. "Just like the last ones that tried to kill our kin."

"So you killed them?" She asked, and waited patiently for an answer. When they didn't answer for several minutes, she shrugged and walked across the room to the other side to examine an old clock with blue glitter sprinkled on the side. "I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt for now and assume _that_ was self-defense. Humans can be stupid creatures." She said with another shrug. "Especially hunters." The Nixes looked at her quizzically and watched her every move. The blond eyed the door that the hunter negligibly left open for their escape.

"What I want to know…" She went on. "Is why those other people were killed? Who or what killed them?"

"It wasn't one of us!"

"You mean a nix?"

"… yes."

"Then what was it?"

"We're not entirely sure."

The old man in the corner watched with large watery eyes as the pair conversed.

"Just so you know, I'm outnumbered and don't plan on harming any of you without cause. If you run out of here screaming I'll be dead in minutes. I just want to make my job easier by-"

"It wasn't one of us, but… I've heard rumors."

"Werewolf did it." The girl blurted.

"I heard it was a shapeshifter." The guy said.

"I also heard that it was a ghost."

"There was a museum opened a year ago, and there was a weird mummy-"

"No, it was a werewolf."

"Honey-"

"Will you two shut up? If you're trying to trick me, it won't work, only piss me off." Jin Ai stated as she started walking towards them. The male made to block the attack and protect his girlfriend, but it did no good as-

10.

Jin Ai was whistling on her way back to the cabin. Her thoughts ran through the information she had attained and started mentally filing everything. Subconsciously she reached up and fidgeted with the brown hat on her head while the other hand stayed firmly on the wheel. "Well, my theory is shot… but at least I know that it's not them… Kappas might just be what's killing them." She mused, and suddenly realized that without the other female in the car, she could blast the music all she wanted.

Victory.

11.

The dreadlocked woman gapped at the sight before her and dropped the keys in her hand. She blinked in surprise for several seconds before attempting to make a coherent sentence out of her incoherent babbles. "What… what the _hell_ are you doing?" She asked, and after the words left her mouth she seemed to snap back into motion and closed the door behind her.

"Oh, hi honey." Jo said with a sarcastic smirk and hand on her hip- blade in her _hand_ on her hip. "I caught a couple of nixes while you were away. I accidentally killed one of them, though, when he got too rowdy…" She said as she pointed at the two boys tied to two kitchen chairs. One of them was the man they saw the previous day on the side of the road, the one that holding up the sign, and the second one was the boy they met last night that lives next door. They both looked about the same age, short brown hair, and beautiful looks- they looked like brothers. Maybe twins.

And they were _covered_ with bruises and cuts. Blood was dripping from the gapping wounds on their arms and pooling on the ground. One of them was staring at her with wide eyes and mumbling excitedly from behind the gag- he was the boy they met last night- while the other was staring at the ground. His head was limp.

Jin Ai looked back at Jo. Jo looked at her with a smile one might show after they completed a chore and expected praise from her mother. Or maybe an excited puppy that had tried to please her master.

"What the hell is _wrong_ with you? Where the hell did you learn to hunt, the Redneck Special on Fox?" She asked the girl before running to the seemingly dead boy in the kitchen and pressing her fingers against his neck. Immediately after she untied him and laid him on the ground, in the process also removing the gag and, for the first time, noticing the gills and fins protruding from various parts of his body. "What happened?"

Jo stood motionless, just watching her partner loom over the boy.

"What happened!" She yelled again from her spot and effectively breaking the blond from her trance. The boy in the chair tried to say something.

"I punched him a few times." Jo answered with a shrug. "It's not like it's human." She carefully stepped around the blood pooling on the ground and stood by the counter with her arms crossed. Jin Ai quickly darted to the other boy and removed the gag.

"He has a blood disorder! He's bleeding internally!"

"Yeah right."

"I'm not lying you stupid bitch!" He yelled at the blond, causing her to walk forward- wanting to slit his throat- but then be pushed back by the girl.

"You're done 'ere, got it? Leave. You can't take my car, but go." She told the blond, bloody hands staining her shirt. "This is _not_ how I hunt. I have a hard enough time dealing with you hunters' after meal messes I don't want to deal with them on my current hunts! Hitchhike for all I care, but just go!"

For a second the blond just stood there unmoving.

"Go!" The bloody girl repeated, and finally watched as the other stomped out of the kitchen and out the door.

"You're a hunter, too?" The boy in the chair asked, but then shook his head and looked at the boy on the ground. "We need to get him to the hospital."

"He barely has a pulse. She didn't kill him, but he's close." She said as she moved to cut the ropes bound to his wrists, but then paused. "I'm not a normal hunter like her. I just met her a week ago. She's new to the business. Can you promise not to attack me when I untie you? In you're condition you may not be able to drive safely."

"Yes I promise, just hurry!" And so she finished untying him and left him the knife in his hands to cut the rest of the ropes; in the meantime she went back to the boy on the ground and lifted him into her arms. She steadily walked towards the open door and to the car, which by that time the other brunette had cut himself free and helped get him into the car. She was relieved to know that he could walk after all that had happened.

Once they were both in the backseat she ran to the driver's seat, shifted into drive, and put the pedal to the metal as she raced down the driveway. On their way she saw the blond in the corner of her eye as they zoomed past her.

"What're your names?"

"… Branden."

"What's his name?"

"Jason. Try not to get us in a car crash, will ya?"

"My uncle's name is Jason…. How did she find out about you two?"

"How did _you_?"

"Your pants. I'm surprised at how many of you there are- I didn't realize there was an entire colony of Nixes hanging out in the open in Wyoming." She turned onto the road, causing the tires to skid on the dirt and cause a dust cloud to form as she raced down the road that led to the freeway.

"You hunters are all the same."

"If we were all the same we'd be in an entirely different situation right now."

"I'll bet you knew what she was doing and are only doing this to gain our trust! You want to kill us for what happened to your little hunter buddies two weeks ago!" He yelled at her, and then looked down at the face in his lap.

"Are you two brothers?"

"What's it to you?"

She shrugged. "You look a lot alike."

The teenager wiped away the blood dripping down his cheek.

12.

She had a _lot_ of glaring faces to answer to after she got Jason and Branden to the hospital. She also got punched in the face a couple of times- leaving a couple of nasty colors brewing along her cheeks and busted lip.

The hunt was going _fantastic_ if you couldn't tell.

She swore that if she ever saw a certain hunter again, she was going to wring that certain hunter's neck and toss her into the goddamn lake. After hours of being in the hospital, lying her ass off to policemen, and trying to talk to the local Nixes, and then on top of that almost breaking her phone from dropping it fifty times, hands fumbling whenever it rang and throwing it in a fit of rage, she was considering for the first time (okay, lie, but not wanting to this badly) to skip town and let the murders keep going on. It wasn't her fault Jo was an idiot and the stupid Nixes wanted her head on a plate, and honestly, she could do without being used as a punching bag.

Okay, the second part was her fault. It was her fault for bringing the stupid blond on the trip.

By the time she got home it was well past midnight and she was exhausted. If she wasn't hyped on caffeine- Pepsi- she would have collapsed on the queen sized bed in the bedroom and squandered off to sleep. As it was, she was walking around the small cabin, nibbling at her hair. After about ten minutes of calming down and assessing the situation, AKA the whole goddamn day, she walked over to the radio and turned it on.

"_Come away with me… tonight."_

She turned it off and grabbed her phone. She dialed the familiar number and pressed the plastic device against her ear. It rang.

And rang.

And rang.

And rang…. Eventually she gave up and closed it, then 'gently' dropped it on the counter.

The back broke off and the battery went flying to the ground.

She sighed.

There was a scream in the distance. Someone yelled her name. Immediately the knife on the counter was in her hand and the gun in her purse was in her jeans pocket; ten seconds later she was running out of the room and running madly through the woods. Her heart was skyrocketing and blood pumped so loudly she thought it was howling into the night air. If she was human she would have had to go back for a flashlight.

Another scream- this time closer and most definitely familiar. A little too familiar.

She came across a clearing that led to a boating dock, and at the shoreline near the dock, the faint shapes of two creatures hunched over in the water could be seen. As Jin Ai got closer she could hear gurgling and splashing in the water. As she got closer she could also tell which one wasn't human, seeing as it had large (some 4 feet) sticks protruding from its back.

Definitely not Nix.

"Hey!" She yelled when she was close enough to get a good shot with her 9 mm gun. When it turned towards the source of the sound, it stared into the darkness unable to see it, and jumped when it heard the gunshot. Its grip on the woman's hair- it had been holding her underwater- loosened and fell onto its back on dry land. Because its back was faced towards the ground the sticks held it up and allowed the dip in the back of its head to empty its contents. When the last of the water dripped from his head his body fell through its shell and sunk into the sticks.

Jin Ai ran into the water and pulled the young woman out. Once she was on land she started CPR.

"1… 2… 3." She parted her lips and breathed air into her lungs, and before she could go another round, the blond was spitting up water and gasping for breath. Jin Ai pulled her in close and silently cursed at herself for being so stupid. They were both soaked now, and shivering, but neither particularly cared at the moment.

13.

**Author's Note:** A couple of the creatures I talk about in this story can be seen on my Deviantart account. If you want to see some of my artwork of them, my account name is 'Swiftdragonfly'. The Kappa isn't exactly like I described, but it's kind of close. You can also get a little more information about them there….

That night Jo was cuddled up in a mountain of blankets while drinking warm tea. She was situated comfortably on the couch, her back (through the blankets) was against the other female's chest and her arms were around her. She felt safe.

Both of them were annoyed and felt like idiots.

"… my dad used to say that Nixes were evil. He put in his journal that no matter how nice they seemed, you had to kill them. No matter how-"

"Your dad sounds like a fool." The other commented cooly, and held down the blond when she tried to wrestle out of her grip. "Most hunters are, Jo."

"You're the fool! They-"

"You were attacked by a _Kappa_-"

"Most likely sent after me after what I did to the Nixes!"

"How do you expect them to not kill humans when we hate them like you do? If you say something is horrible and they're going to do something enough times, they'll do it."

"… They're not_ human_."

"As long as they don't hurt humans, we don't have a problem. There's possibly hundreds of them in this state, Jo. We're outnumbered anyway. Just let it go." She said, and kissed the back of her head.

"But-"

"Will you shut up? Your rash and stupid actions are what got you nearly killed."

"It jumped me after _you_ kicked me out."

"Because you were being stupid."

"… you're stupid."

"We're leaving tonight. It's your choice whether to come with me or not." She said as she removed her arms from around the young girl and moved from the couch. She stood and left the small living room to get her things.

The blond sat there, silently fuming, but suddenly realized that she'd crossed a certain line on this adventure. This wasn't _her_ hunt- it was Jin Ai's. Whether or not she agreed with her ethics, she was only supposed to be along for the ride, not try and take the wheel.

An hour later after they'd both packed up, they got in the car, pulled out a sugary beverage, and started drinking as they cruised down the road out of town. "_Come away with me…_" The dreadlocked woman hummed quietly.


	3. Ekekekekekekekekekekek

1.

"So… what's next?" The blond asked tiredly from her bed. Her hair was still messed from sleeping and her voice was a little groggy, but at this early in the morning it was to be expected.

5:00 AM blinked violently from the small clock on the nightstand.

"You should go back to sleep."

"I'm already awake." She answered easily, and yawned into her hand before pulling the sheets off and walking over to the girl across the room. The woman was sitting at the small round table next to the window, sipping her coffee- in front of her was a small laptop. Jo came over from behind and wrapped her arms around her. She only wore a tank top and short girly boxers. "'Town of no sleep'?" She read out loud, staring at the screen and starting to read the article.

"A large number of people in that area are having nightmares so bad they can't sleep. It's unusual because it's so many in one place."

"Is that where we're going?"

"No. Someone's on that case, and I don't barge in on other people's cases." She said, and refrained from smirking when the blond winced. They could see each other's reflections in the laptop screen. "I was just checking up on them. Who's the source that knows about vampires?"

"Gordon."

"Gordon? Huh… he is a good hunter, but he scares the shit out of me."

"You already knew him?"

"Any way, the next case… I was thinking of checking out something in Montana." Jin Ai said as she scrolled through her various tabs and eventually found the article pertaining to the possible case. "Strange number of stillbirths. My uncle called me last night and gave me a heads up about it."

"Wait… we're going to check out baby deaths? Isn't that more of a medical case than supernatural?" The blond asked as she skimmed through the article, and felt the woman beneath her shrug and lean back in her chair. She took another sip of her coffee.

"I told you, I take the leftovers. 'Sides, if I go on another one with you, I'd rather it be an easier one than have both of us get killed. Any problems with that?" She asked, a bit more snappy than she intended. Good thing the blond was too tired to really argue or notice.

"Sounds good, captain."

"Then get dressed, we're off to Ekalaka, Montana."

2.

It was a pretty boring case full of crying women, asshole men, and a bunch of old people. Aside from the fairly young women that Jin Ai and Jo talked to, the majority of the town was made up of old geizers. … it was also _really_ cold. They had extremely hot summers and freezing cold winters, and although it wasn't winter yet, it was pretty damn close.

"Halloween's tomorrow." Jo commented from the passenger seat.

"… Is it?"

"Yeah."

"Huh." Jin Ai commented idly as she cruised down the long road, quietly drumming on the steering wheel and occasionally glancing at the girl that was staring at her. "What are you looking at? You've been staring at me for the past hour." She snapped, once again a bit more angrily than intended.

"Nothing…." She sighed and turned to look out the window. The other woman scoffed.

"I'm going to be busy that night. You can do whatever the hell you want. Work on the case, go out and party at grannies, whatever."

"What are you going to do?"

"None of your business."

"What are you keeping from me?"

"I'm letting you come with me out the kindness of my heart and-"

"Don't give me that bullshit."

"Then don't give me your bullshit." Jin Ai snapped. Jo blushed and looked out the window again, not wanting to look at the driver and even more wanting to blast country music from the speakers. Music would be _so_ much better than this ever constant-mostly-awkward silence- the only sound being the hum of the vehicle as it drove- but neither of them could agree on a music genre to listen to and it always ended in a fight.

"You've been cranky the past few days…"

"I hunt on my own for ten years and out of nowhere some chick decides to go hunting with me, buzzing around me for days. You do the math."

"… Bitch."

"Jerk."

3.

"Can I borrow the car tonight?" Jo asked as she stood at the end of the other woman's bed, hands on her hips and scowl on her face. The dark haired woman looked up from her magazine with a bemused expression and smiled.

She whistled. "Sexy. Planning to meet a big bad wolf this full moon?" She asked as she looked the woman up and down, noting how the outfit looked to be two sizes too small and she hadn't put her shirt on yet. The blond stood there in a Red Riding Hood costume, short frilly skirt and all; minus the shirt and red cloak. She wore a pink lacey bra instead.

"Car? Can I borrow it?"

"For what?"

"There's a party in the next town over."

"Are you planning to party or get laid?"

"What difference does it make?" She asked, and the woman shrugged.

"Fine. My business is within walking distance."

"… You going to see a movie or something? Like last time?" She blond asked as she watched the woman on the bed fish the keys from her pocket and toss them to her. She caught it with ease.

The dreadlocked woman shrugged again. "Maybe." As she went back to reading the article, the blond stabbed her high heel into the carpet, and stomped away to the bathroom to finish getting ready. The woman on the bed glanced up when she wasn't looking, to maybe see what was wrong, but aside from being annoyed or angry no unexplainable reason, Jin Ai had no idea what was up. She went back to her magazine and waited for the blond to leave.

4.

She walked down the street at about 2:58 AM with her hands in her pockets and wide red scarf around her neck. Her hair was loose around her head and rested against the large black coat she wore, her eyes casually lingered from one house to another, and her quiet foot steps echoed softly in the empty street. The cold air nipped at her unusually pale skin.

It was an empty and dark street lined with house after house. Inside the homes men and women slept in darkness and dreamt about one thing or another. Dogs twitched as they ran after the imaginary rabbit. In one of the houses a large, old, dusty clock chimed the end of the hour and the start of the new one.

Shadows crept along the sandy ground and wind caused a piece of plastic to smash itself into metal repeatedly. Jin Ai paused to listen to this and identify the source, but alas, it was too dark to find it.

She did see something move on one of the roofs, though.

Two large orbs, shining a brilliant yellow, stared at her from the roof of a house. It tilted its head. A string of sorts seemed to be hanging from its mouth. It briefly flapped its wings and caused some of its dark feathers to fall off and drift to the ground.

"ekekekekekek…." It hummed as it stared at her. The woman guessed that the 'string' hanging from its mouth wound around the side of the home and found itself in the opening of a window, where it slithered into bed with a pregnant woman.

The creature sat there; hunched over, eyes staring at her, feathers gathering on the rooftop.

"You think I won't attack you because of what I am… you think I'm safe, but you're still cautious…" The dark skinned woman muttered thoughtfully as she stood there, staring back at the creature. She stood thinking for a few minutes, contemplating what her next action should be, when her gaze moved to the house next door.

She started walking again to the house she looked at, completely calm and betraying no emotion to the creature. When she got to the stranger's yard, she muttered under her breath 'I hate kids anyway'.

5.

The next day Jin Ai sat in one of the motel chairs with her feet propped up and newspaper on her lap. She sipped gingerly at the steaming coffee cup in her hand and occasionally stole a glance at the sleeping girl on the bed.

It was getting close to noon. Light was shining into the room full force and allowed her to read the small print of the Sunday news, and somehow, Jo still slept. Drool was flowing freely from the side of her mouth and her eyes fluttered partially open to closed every few seconds. Even though it was very cool in the room, she was sweating slightly and had the blankets strewn around her, only covering little more than half her body. The girl in the chair stared for a moment, watching and hearing the young woman moan. A minute later the blond turned onto her other side.

She could _smell_ the nightmares she was having, and wanted so badly to have a taste. Whatever she was thinking, whatever she was dreaming, smelled _delicious_. She licked her lips, but then looked away and forced her attention back on the paper in her hands, only to realize it was shaking. Cursing softly, she closed the newspaper and went back to her laptop.

"'the cause of sudden increase in still births in Ekalaka, Montana have worried locals for months, but they discovered the reason this was happening: the thing all of them had in common was the cereal they ate. Seems the manufacturers…'" She read out loud, and the blond woman groaned, grabbed one of her pillows, and threw it at the woman in the chair. She smiled and chuckled before taking another sip of her coffee.


	4. Wheel in the Sky Keeps on Turning

1.

**Random fact**: Ekeks are called 'Ekek' because they make the sound "ekekekekek" as the feast on unborn babies. Also, if you didn't catch it, 'Ekalaka' sounds a lot like 'Ekek', which is why I had the hunt there.

"How long do you usually wait before you find a case? The last few we didn't wait so long in between." Jo asked across from her in the small diner. They were currently in Colorado, eating cheap food and waiting for a case to pop up. The other female shrugged between bites.

"However long it takes." She commented, mouth full of food and making the other female flinch. When she continued the food had safely traveled down her throat. "I'm waiting for a call from either Bobby or Jay. They're well connected enough that I don't need to do most of the research."

"Don't you ever go on current cases? It makes you seem lazy."

"Tagging along with me all the time makes you look like a free loader."

"People hunt in pairs all the time."

"I don't. You're dragging me down, bitch."

"Whose the one that _found_ the kappa in Arizona?"

"That was _Wyoming_." She corrected. "And you also made enemies with the entire state_ and_ the kappa almost killed you. I won't be able to work cases there for a very _very_ long time because of you."

"But we still stopped whatever was killing people." She countered.

"I stopped it; you were just an idiot."

"Like hell I was!"

"Shut up and eat your food." Jin Ai finally ordered when she noticed that people were starting to stare, and glared when the blond grumbled something along the lines of 'yes mother'.

"It's been two weeks since the Montana case." Jo finally said after about two minutes of quiet eating. "I overheard the other day there's a haunting over in-"

"Hunters are already on that one."

"But-"

"I already explained this to you. Don't you ever listen you whiny bitch?"

"Don't _you_ ever listen?"

"You're too brash." Jin Ai suddenly commented, and caused the blond to stop for a moment to figure out what she meant.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Patience young grasshopper. I don't want to run into other hunters on my cases, so I take the ones they've already died in. The cases we take may be far in between, but they're bound to be the death of a brash blond."

"… shut up and eat your food."

The dread locked woman smiled and continued eating, occasionally stealing glances at the blond's pink face.

2.

"Why the hell are we in a bug zoo?"

"Because I think they're fascinating. You didn't have to come if you didn't want to."

"What can I say? You're just too good." Jo commented with a smirk and the other girl rolled her eyes. They held hands as they walked through the small building, occasionally stopping to look at a particular insect that grabbed Jin Ai's attention, and wandering on. Young boys stared at the insects in mild amazement and some pointed at the two women in even more amazement. There were a few little girls running around, maybe ten or eleven, being chased by boys the same age carrying fake insects and throwing them at them.

"Spiders…" Jin Ai commented in a low voice and creepily wide smile as she gazed at the arachnids, dead and alive, pinned along the wall and trapped in glass cases. She stopped to look at a Nephila Clavata that was imported from Japan.

The blond at her side squirmed a bit at all the spiders around them, and fidgeted as she brushed her arms and neck to make sure the little monsters hadn't escaped and decided to crawl all over her. Although she didn't have a particular fear over insects, the idea of them crawling all over her was a little more than unappealing and brought on by the sight of them. She knew that one of cages was bound to break or let one of them loose, and when they did, they were bound to go for her. She could die. Some of the them were poisonous. True story.

"_Nephila clavata_… isn't it beautiful?" The darker skinned woman commented as she got her face close to the glass and stared at the colorful spider, watching it wrap a thin thread around an insect and proceed to eat it. The woman gingerly stroked her other's hand with her thumb, a spark running through their limbs. "It's from Japan."

"I'm going to have nightmares over this…"

"No, you won't. Jorōgumo is a legendary creature in Japanese folklore, and a Jorōgumo is a spider –Nephila Clavata- which can change its appearance into that of a beautiful woman. She attracts men, and once a man has been trapped as a result of her seduction, they're tied up and eaten by her."

"… sexy." Jo commented after a moment.

"If you think killing people is an attractive trait, then sure. Ooh, they have an Anelosimus spider."

"A what?"

"A kind of spider that lives in a colony. This one is from Arizona. They can have up to 1,000 in one of their colonies. It's a pretty big family."

"Huh."

"Ah!" She squealed in excitement, in the process attracting a lot of attention, but for once completely ignoring the stranger's stares. "They have a happy face spider! Look at how happy it is!"

"It's _dead_."

"You can be happy when you're dead."

"I don't think that's the case here."

"… it's still _awesome_!"

"Can we go? Like, _now_? I'm tired of having all these nerds staring at us."

"But I'm a nerd and you're not bothered when I stare at you." She commented as she looked away from the dead insect and smiled at the blond. Jo rolled her eyes and tried to unlock their hands, but Jin Ai wouldn't let go. "Come on, I've never had a girl come with me to a bug museum. This is my life dream. Stay with me a little while longer?" she asked with a pout, and turned to wrap her arms around her neck. The blond blushed at the sudden contact and looked to the side of her head. Her eye twitched at the wall of dead insects.

"Twenty minutes." She finally caved, and scowled when the girl pecked her cheek and turned back around to stare at all the dead things. Her cheek tingled where their skin had met.

3.

"I hate dancing."

"I just spent the day at a freaking bug zoo with you. I like tulips and dancing. You owe me."

"But… dancing? Couldn't you pick something a little less demeaning?"

"How is dancing demeaning, bug freak?" Jo snapped at the female from the passenger seat. As her partner kept driving, she smoothed her red dress and fixed up her hair, all the while managing to keep a steady glare. The driver's side window was cracked open, enough to let out the _strong_ stench of perfume and let in enough cold air to cool them down. The blond's cheeks were pink and her movements were getting more and more jerky as the day wore on. She was nervous and excited about tonight.

The brunette rolled her eyes but said nothing edgewise. Her fingers drummed lazily against the steering wheel, a half assed effort of barely lifting the tips and barely even tapping the leather. The windshield was a little fogged. She changed the conversation to what kind of dancing she was forcing her to do.

"Ballroom."

"Yuck."

"Take off that hat, it-" Jo said as she reached for the brown knitted garment and tried to remove it from her head, but the brunette's hand shot up and grabbed her wrist roughly. Her thin fingers dug into the pale woman's skin, turning it more white than usual around Jin Ai's dark skin.

"_No one touches my hat but me. Got it?"_ She seethed angrily, the tone matching that of an angry hornet's nest when someone stepped in it, and narrowed her eyes menacingly at the blond while gripping her wrist more forcefully.

After a second of staring, bewildered at the sudden venom, Jo nodded and pulled her now bruised hand away.

"… we're still going dancing."

"Whatever." Jin Ai muttered as she looked back at the road. Her hand went back to the steering wheel, her half assed efforts of drumming at the leather continued.

4.

A week later it was still pretty quiet between them. In all honesty Jin Ai suspected that Jo would leave to go join up with another hunter, any day now, especially after the incident. Her wrist was still bruised and she was cautious around her. She would start to say something to the brunette, glance at her hat, then to her eyes, and snap her mouth shut and either walk away or resign herself to looking back out the window.

Jin Ai would sometimes make little comments or compliment her clothing or something, but otherwise kept conversations to the minimum. It was a little awkward for the dreadlocked woman, but she ignored it and went on with life as if she were living on her own again. It was just a matter of time before the blond ditched her, anyway.

One day said blond left the motel room to walk around town. She brought her bag with her that contained the majority of her belongings.

Jin Ai watched her leave with half lidded eyes and hands folded behind her head. When she was gone she sighed, closed her eyes, and meditated.

Some twenty minutes later she came back, though, grinning from ear to ear with something in her hand. Snow had accumulated on her hair and shoulders, as well as dusted on the pack on her back. The brunette looked up and raised a lazy eyebrow at her, but otherwise made no other movement as she watched her zoom across the room and dig into her pack. She pulled out speakers and attached her iPod to something.

She raised the volume.

"I accidentally put your phone in my back pack, and Bobby called…"

_Come away with me in the night  
Come away with me  
And I will write you a song_

"… is this a new code for 'let's go hunt something'?"

"That's not the only thing it's code for." She said with a mischievous smile, and hopped over to where she was laying and kissed her lightly on the lips. After a couple seconds she pulled away, smiled at the proximity of their faces, and the other turned her head from side to side to rub their noses together.

5.

"Bobby, the case is in fucking _Maine_? As in, twelve feet of snow, homophobic, ass hole, red neck, racist… Maine?"

"If you don't want the case…"

"Well it's no surprise hunters got killed on the case. They step two feet outside and they're head deep in snow with no way out. People freeze to death. Haven't you ever seen 'Dream Catcher'? Well, they didn't freeze to death, but-"

"They didn't fucking freeze to death you git, their bodies were mutilated, poisoned, and covered with spider bites ten times the size they should be. This happens once a year and only in winter. You're the only hunter I think would be able to handle it."

"I won't be able to get anything done in racist homophobic-"

"You won't be dealing with people, you'll be dealing with bugs. Have Jo help you with the people part. Sam and Dean are the only other people I think would be able to handle it, but their heads are so far up their asses they wouldn't be able to."

"You're telling me no other hunter is qualified for this shitty case?"

"… they all refused to do it. Most of them hate bugs, are already on a case, or don't want a case that Holden and Johnson couldn't handle. They were great hunters and they bit the dust. A lot of people respected them and would rather not fall to the same fate. Not to mention all the hunters before him… You on the other hand thrive on these kind of cases." Bobby spoke into the phone, all the while imagining the younger hunter grinding her teeth and silently fuming.

"Cock-sucker… do you have snow chains I can borrow? Or a car with four-wheel drive, or something that won't die in the fucking freezing cold winter of fucking Maine? And does Jo's mom know that you're tellin' me to go on a case no one else has survived?"

"I've got a truck you can use. And I don't plan to tell her anything, you?"

Jin Ai glanced at the bathroom door, heard the water still running, and turned her attention back to the man on the other end of the phone. "I call her every so often to let her know that her only daughter is alive, but I refrain from telling her the case… I think she's starting to like me."

"She wants to kill you."

"She used to want to put me in a meat grinder, now she wants to just slit my throat. I'm growing on her."

"When do you think you'll be here to pick up the truck?"

"By midnight. Jo has got the jitters to get moving and won't let me take my time… like I'd like to…"

"Whipped."

"I'm not whipped."

"I'll see you later Jin."

"Later, bastard."

6.

"I think you should stay behind." Jin Ai started.

"So you've told me."

"I mean it."

"I'm staying with you." She said as she put a hand on their other's. She pulled away.

"Don't try and be all romantic."

"Right back at you."

7.

The dark skinned girl was practically glowing by the time they got into the state. Snow was piled well past five feet, but as they drove on the icy roads and continued through the forest, all she could think about was what kind of insect it could be. They were on their way to the cabin that the previous hunters had been staying before they bit the dust, so they should find out more there, but it still didn't keep her mind from churning the information Bobby had given her.

She glanced at the blond in the passenger seat, bundled up in blankets and sleeping soundly. Jin Ai reached over and brushed the hair out of her eyes, but as she did so, the woman recoiled and eyes moved beneath her lids rapidly. Jin Ai pulled back quickly.

She retreated back to her thoughts.

Bobby had said that they narrowed it down to a type of spider, even though there aren't supposed to be any poisonous spiders in Maine, and that it doesn't have a specific pattern to its prey. It basically eats anything living, bites the hell out of it, and then dumps it somewhere. Not very spider-like characteristics, but according to Bobby, Johnson got a glimpse of it and talked to Bobby before he became spider food. When she asked Bobby what _kind_ of spider, or any description of it whatsoever, he said he had none.

_Great_. There's thousands of spiders, hundreds of folklore around the world involving spiders either turning giant and/or killing people, and just as many people that either experiment with spiders or have access to 'cool magic books that are for fun and don't actually kill people'. Jin Ai once heard that a witch tried to make a certain something bigger, but she messed up one of the words and instead made a snake –the other kind with fangs and scales- five times its size and killed her and several others in her town. Luckily it couldn't handle the environment and died quickly, and the townspeople so freaked out by it that they burned it.

They _do_ know that it hunts in winter, which is unusual for spiders to be active that time of year, and that it's been killing people for about twenty years. The government doesn't get involved because, well, they're stupid and think it's some kind of bear attack. They also know that it probably hunts at night, seeing as Johnson was last heard talking to Bobby after nightfall. This means nothing though, since it hunts in winter and likely any characteristics won't match up with any hemiptera.

Some characteristics, maybe, but not all.

It gave her goose bumps to think about what the creature looks like. What if it turned into a seductive woman in the daytime and spider at night? Damn. If it didn't kill people, Jin Ai would be in love. All of those memories it must have… mmm. But what if it didn't have memories? What if it was truly a spider at heart, and thus only lived to kill? What if it has the mind of a human but instincts of a spider? What if it falls in love, but alas, can't help but kill its lovers? What if it has babies?

… what if there's more than one?

A harem of spider women?

"What are you smiling about?" The sleepy blond asked from her seat, snuggled deep in her blankets and looking at the grinning driver.

"Nothing."

8.

"Shouldn't we… you know… bring bug repellent or something?" Jo asked as she watched her partner load up on guns. Her brown eyes watched as gun after gun was hidden in her coat or handed to her, each loaded with bullets beforehand. "What will bullets do?"

"Shoot a bug once, you piss it off. Shoot it a hundred times and it's food."

"… ew."

"Come on. Keep your guard up in case it's still here. Unlikely, but it's a possibility." The dreadlocked woman commented with an eager smile and closed the trunk. She kept one of her guns in her hand and started through the thick snow towards the small dark cabin. It was noon, now. If the hemiptera was in there, it would be sleeping, probably. Hopefully. They didn't know for sure that it always hunted at night, but I guess they'll find out for themselves, won't they?

She didn't take too much caution when she approached the old cabin. Hunter after hunter had stayed there over the years in hopes of killing the roid rage human killing creature, but none of them were killed in the cabin. If she recalled correctly, quite a few hunters have stayed here without incident and without seeing the creature. When they couldn't find it they left, came again the next year, and if they didn't see it then, then they saw it the year after that. You were either lucky or dead.

As she walked into the old cabin, strolling inside as if it were her own, Jo followed behind her cautiously. Her weapon was raised. Jin Ai smiled at this.

She walked around the cabin, stuck her tongue out at the bad décor, and discovered that the hunters things were still there. Month old burgers were starting to mold in the fridge, open beers were on the counter, clothing was strewn about the bedroom. "Cozy." She commented, and pulled out one of her sodas from her pocket and opened it. She took a drink from it, capped it, and put it on the counter next to a beer. "Let's get our things."

"We're actually going to stay here?" Jo asked from the bedroom, looking disgusted at her surroundings. Her face was pale and breathing irregular. "People died here."

"They died somewhere else. Don't worry little deer, I'll take care of you."

The blond grumbled a response and dumped her pack on the couch in the living room. "I'm sleeping on the couch."

"I recommend that we sleep together tonight. _If_ it comes after us, it would go after you, and then me. If we're together it'll kill you and then I'll avenge your death and kill it." She said with a giggle. The blond had no idea what to say to that.

9.

"So how are we going to hunt for it?" Jo asked as she watched the other woman add wood to the fire and then plop back down on the couch. She shrugged.

"Not sure yet. First we're going to the morgue to check out the dead bodies, then we'll, aka me, will figure out what it is. From there we'll figure out what to do."

"So… we're playing it by ear?"

"Pretty much."

"Oh." She said, and sighed. She decided to pull out her knife, for boredom's sake, and finger the initials on it. After a moment of silence and just staring at it, the other female asked about it. She told her it was her father's and that it was made from iron. Not caring to continue the conversation about parents Jin Ai didn't question further and instead stared at the fire. "… why are you so protective about your hat?"

"None of your business." She said quickly, but not harshly. The blond didn't question further. "Why do you hate your mom so much?"

"… she doesn't want me to hunt. She doesn't let me to _anything_ that I want to do. I want… I just want to be free. I went to college for a couple years, but I was just the kid with the knife collection." She said as she still eyed the knife in her hands and turned it over and over. "My dad was a hunter."

"How'd he die?"

"… on a hunt. I don't know the details." She commented, her hands shaking slightly. The other nodded and looked back to the dancing flames.

10.

"Finally the FBI is bothering to take a look at these murders." The doctor said as he led them into the cold room, warm breath blowing white smoke into the air, and reached for one of the slates.

"No one said anything about murders."

"Then why are you here?"

"Vacation." Jin Ai said with a sarcastic smirk, and the white coated male hardly looked amused. He glared but continued pulling out the slate with the dead body on it. The blond winced and looked away.

"I thought your partner had medical experience?"

"Online degree, you know. Kids nowadays. Agent Hansen, why don't you leave this to me?" Jin Ai asked the green woman, who nodded and slowly left the room. The doctor across from the dark skinned woman frowned.

"Did you get a degree online, too? Are you going to turn green and puke on the body?"

"I'm good around dead bodies, Kendal. Can I take a look at your report?"

"Dr. Kendal." He corrected, and looked at her skeptically. "Haven't you already seen it?"

"Admittedly I was put on this case at the last minute and didn't get all the information I needed. My boss doesn't like me."

"I wonder why." The man muttered under his breath as he reached into a container and pulled out a folder with the information on Johnson here. He handed the folder to Jin Ai and went back to the body. "You see these lacerations here? They aren't consistent with any kind of claw marks I've seen from bears. They look more like pincers or stab marks. I did a few tests on their blood work, just to check, and found that there was poison in their veins. Northern Black Widow to be exact."

"Northern Black Widow? Don't they usually hibernate during the winter?"

"So you do know something. Yes, and on top of that, look at these marks on the skin," He said as he held up one of the arms, paired up circles covered the arm and rest of the body, each ranging from two inches wide and nearly going through the arm to a centimeter in diameter and going barely an inch deep. "They're too big to be spider bites. Someone must have stabbed him with something, killing him, and then injected the poison to imitate a spider."

"It's not indigenous to this state…" She muttered as she looked through the papers. "He died from blood loss, not poison, right? If someone did inject him with poison, do you think it was before or after he was dead?"

"Before."

"You think the stab wounds caused his death? Is his friend in the same condition?"

"Yes."

"Interesting…" she muttered as she glanced again at one of the papers, set it to the side, and took a pair of gloves from nearby. "Do you mind if I take a look at him?"

"… sure, but, don't tell anyone, alright? He's going to be cremated in a couple days anyway, so I can't imagine what you'd do to him, but since you're technically not-"

"I promise. Can you leave the room? I don't mean to sound rude, but I work and find things easier when I'm alone."

"What do you think you can find that I couldn't, n***er?"

"… we'll see." She commented, completely ignoring his comment and going straight to examining the corpse. She smiled as he left, and found that there were different sized bites through out the body, meaning one thing….

Yep. It's a harem of cannibalistic spiders, ranging from ten-fifteen times their normal size.

Sexy indeed.

11.

**Random fact**: A good chunk of this was written when I was smitten with a young lady friend of mine, then dated the young lady friend, then young lady friend broke up with me and went back to her ex boyfriend the same hour she broke up with me, told me a bunch of bullshit, and then stupid lady friend went to being more stupid and made me pissed off at the world and all inhabited. That was over the course of about two weeks or less.

"So what's the plan?" The blond asked as she followed Jin Ai into the cabin, and stopped when the woman in front of her who turned on her.

"_You_ are leaving town. Tonight."

"Like hell I-" The blond started, but then was pushed forcefully into the door, clicking it shut. Had she not been wearing fifty layers of clothing it might have hurt from a rusty nail jabbing into her back. Jin Ai had her forearm pushing her against the wooden structure, fist on one shoulder and elbow at the other. "What the-"

"You're leaving. _Tonight_." She repeated, but was surprised when the female under her did some kind of kung fu and turned the tables on her. Now _her_ back was against the door. She pushed her back. They both attempted punches at each other, movements stifled from their clothing, and blocked each other until Jo finally planted a full on punch to Jin Ai's face. She crashed onto the ground and Jo immediately climbed on top of her, took off one of her gloves, and pulled her head up.

The experienced hunter had made the mistake of underestimating her.

Jin Ai could feel blood trickle from her nose and tasted it with her tongue. She shuddered into the cold air as she watched the girl on top of her lean her face in close. They were both glaring and breathing heavy, the cold air already starting to cool down their heated skin. "I'm not going _anywhere_." The blond breathed onto her lips. She could smell Jo's lunch she'd eaten a half hour ago- macaroni and cheese._ The bastard had eaten her macaroni and cheese._

"Do you want to die like your father?" Jin Ai hissed, and winced when the grip on her hair tightened.

"I'm not my father!"

"You're right, you're just a ghost of him doomed to repeat-"

_Punch!_

Now her lip was busted. Second time since they started working together.

"Shut up! I'm not leaving you no matter what you say!"

"You've known me, for what, two months? _Maybe_? Hunters shouldn't get romantically involved with other hunters."

"Then why the hell do you kiss me?"

"I didn't think you'd get this attached! I can survive this hunt, you can't!"

"Bull shit!"

"Leave!" They bantered back and forth, their voices rising to the point that it sounded like a yelling match to see who could be the loudest in this fight. At one point Jo had punched her again and blood was covering the pale skin of her hand. The red liquid was flowing down the woman's face.

"You're no more invincible than I am! We're both human and you could die!"

"You're an inexperienced, stupid, brash, stupid-"

"You said stupid twice!"

"Bitch!"

Another punch.

"If you get attached to hunters like this," Jin Ai started, glancing at her bloodied hand, "Then you'll want to avenge them and get yourself killed in the process. If you're not attached, then you leave and stay alive. Don't you get that this isn't a game?" She argued on the verge of tears, bruises appearing on her face and nose and cheeks stinging.

"Don't you get that I love you?" Jo whispered as she leaned in and rested her forehead against hers.

"You…" She choked. "You're an idiot. I don't love you. You don't know what love is."

"I know damn well what it is. There's nothing you can say or do to make me leave."

"If you're trying to be a Bella-"

"What?"

"Bella Swan, Twilight"

"Right."

"If you're trying to be like her there's no sparkles at the end of this hunt. You'll most likely-"

"Love you too, my bloody mess." She said as she leaned down and placed a soft kiss on her lips. Jin Ai completely froze, eyes wide, and couldn't register anything but those pink, cracked, strawberry flavored lips against her own. She suddenly didn't care about the hunt, whether the girl left or stayed, didn't care about the stupid- okay, maybe not stupid- spiders. Her arms reached up behind her neck, pulled her own gloves off and gripped the back of her head to pull her in closer. The kiss deepened, their tongues brushed against each other and battled for dominance.

Jin Ai's blood smeared against the pale girl's skin, Jo's bloodied hand bloodied her neck. Jin Ai flipped her over and climbed on top, pinning her hands down above her head and placing bruising kisses along her jaw.

12.

Jin Ai silently cursed as they trudged through the wilderness with their GPS, hunting rifles, and ridiculously obnoxious hats. Jo had insisted that she take off the brown hat before putting on the hunting hat, but of course she refused and because she didn't want to wear the stupid hunting hat. Jo fought her and threatened to punch her again, so to avoid more bruising she wore it. Speaking of which, it hurt to smile and open her left eye. Now Jin Ai has two hats on, making her sweat more than necessary, and they're rubbing against each other weirdly. Not two mention that the hat is bright bright orange and made her look like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

The brunette knew that the blond thought she had control over the relationship. Like hell she did. Jin Ai would have this hunt done in no time if the stupid blond wasn't there. She could do what she usually does on hunts, which is-

Instead they're being loud, leaving tracks, and practically asking for one of the spiders to come along and bite them in the ass. There's a reason that all of those hunters died, and that's because they weren't Jin fucking Ai. Bitch.

However, the brunette was glad at the moment that Jo is blond. Yes, she's talking about the stereotype that says they're stupid. Right now they're hunting for giant spiders in the daytime, not night when they attack and are easy to spot. Chances are that they won't find one.

Ha.

When they returned back to the cabin the brunette drugged the other woman's drink and went back out to hunt. She had made sure that the windows, doors, etc were closed and shut tightly. No huge ass spiders would be getting in there tonight.

And as night descended, Jin Ai walked back into the snow, tugged on her brown hat, gun in hand, red scarf around her neck, and disappeared into the night.

13.

To say Jo was angry when she returned was an understatement. Her face was so red and scrunched up that it was borderline purple raisin shaped. It would have been funny if the female on the receiving end wasn't so tired from shooting and avoiding getting bitten by the _five feet tall_ spiders.

Jin Ai read somewhere that it was impossible for spiders to reach this height on account of their exoskeleton unable to hold all of their innards. At the moment she wanted to shoot however said that.

Jo was still yelling at her, and kept doing so for the next hour. Jin Ai kind of just stood there, teetering on her feet, and yawned into her hand every so often. She kind of ignored the blond's ranting. Her thoughts were preoccupied on the idea that she would have to come back here each year for the next decade in order to get even half of the vermin crawling around this forest. The stupid Latrodectus has probably spread to nearby states over the years, but hopefully don't live long. Hopefully.

"Are you listening to me?"

"You're still talking to me? I thought you'd be in a slightly better mood after making out… doesn't that usually put people in a good mood?" She said as she watched the tendons on her neck jut out and twitch. There was a red mark on the left one.

A vein on her forehead that she hadn't noticed before pulsed beneath the skin. The brunette couldn't help but smirk at how angry she looked, but then shrugged. "Hey, it was either drugging you or driving you to meet your mother in Vermont."

Jo got quiet for a minute, but after that minute, she was in a new flurry of cursing and yelling.

Jin Ai was tempted to say 'you're cute when you're angry', but decided against it. She could still feel the bruises on her face where she'd been hit the day before.


	5. It's My Life

1.

**Random Fact**: Penises are gross.

The dreadlocked woman still never slept while Jo was near, and it was driving the blond crazy. Each night, around eleven or so, she'd just leave and won't return until about 4 or so in the morning with coffee and some kind of pastry breakfast. She looked as if she never got any sleep, yet acted normal around her. Sometimes she wondered if she had insomnia, but she also considered the idea that she didn't trust her enough to sleep with her. Is it possible she thought that she was such an inadequate hunter, she didn't even feel comfortable to sleep around her without thinking she'd kill her? Even after she'd professed her love? Okay, she'll admit, she said that mostly because of the heat of the moment. She really didn't know what she felt for the hunter.

Anyway.

Whenever she asked about where she went every night, she'd say it was none of her business or change the subject. She was tempted, okay _really_ tempted, to put a tracker on her to see where she went, but she didn't want to be _that_ kind of girlfriend.

Instead, she kept pestering and bugging her about it. Until their next hunt, her goal was to figure out what her big secret was. She vowed to find out.

2.

Jin Ai had been communicating with Ellen the entire time. Emailing her, telling her what kind of hunts she brought Jo on, telling her that she's keeping her safe. At first Ellen was beyond pissed, it didn't take long to figure out where Jo had gotten her temper from, but after a few weeks of emailing back and forth she calmed down to point of reason. She didn't like it, but she did appreciate that she had someone on the inside letting her know that her little girl was alright.

It was now January and the two girls had gone on a few more hunts. Whenever she emailed Ellen she never told her what their current hunt was, only the ones they had already wrapped up and moved onto the next. She didn't give too much detail, of course, but she gave her a vague idea about what was going on. She reported that Jo was starting to learn, was a bit more patient when it came to going after something, and actually listened once in a while on the account that she's gotten herself bitten, shot, scratched, and stabbed- and that's all from one hunt.

She got tangled up with a shapeshifter that changed into a wolf. She thought it would be a good idea to, for once, be the one telling the other female 'I didn't want you get hurt' and be the hero of the story. What ended up happening was that she got her ass kicked and Jin Ai had to save the day. Again.

Pretty sure Ellen got a kick out of that.

The dreadlocked woman felt guilty for what she was doing, but at the same time, she couldn't leave the stupid blond. It would be like leaving a bald puppy in the arctic surrounded by a pack of starving wolves. And then kicking it. Repeatedly.

She liked puppies.

Well, she liked puppies, but they didn't like her… they always growled and barked at her… something about her hat…

3.

Instead of playing her games at night like she likes, she started doing two hunts at the same time. One hunt during the day with the blond, and a more dangerous one at night. Sometimes she'd come back to the motel room with gashes on her arms or chest; the majority of the time the blond slept when she crept into the room, used to her early morning return, and she just walked into the bathroom and cleaned her wounds.

As the weeks wore on, Jin Ai got more and more jittery and twitchy. Unlike her invisible injuries this went by noticed, and the blond threatened to punch her if she didn't tell her what was going on. Her threats were empty, but Jin Ai was touched by it. Kind of.

Sometimes they made out. Another thing that drove Jo insane is that Jin Ai refused to have sex with her.

She was still going to figure out where the brunette was going at night, but at this point, it seems nearly impossible. Sometimes she wants to cry; but she's a hunter. She's strong.

She won't cry for a stupid girl.


	6. Sweet Dreams

1.

**Random fact**: women of a healthy weight are attractive. Women that look like a walking microphone stands are not.

It was one of those nights where they didn't have a job during the day, but Jin Ai was working night shifts to kill the more difficult creatures of the night. Right now she was tracking down a demon. It had been possessing young men and making them kill their own wives, children, decapitate pets, replace the organs of loved ones with an animal head- the works. It was pretty nasty.

After the young men came to and realized what they had done, they shot a bullet into their brains.

Even Jin Ai hadn't had a nightmare that bad.

It was pretty difficult to track the bastard down. He left messy leftovers, but damn, he was good at hiding his tracks. She even had to get tracking help from Jay and Bobby, which she rarely does. At one point she even called Dean and Sam up, which is an even more rare, and still found zip.

Jo knew about the hunt because she told her. She tried to get herself involved, but lost the argument like usual. When this happened Jin Ai was certain she'd leave, since she was doing a hunt without her and they were considered partners, but she didn't. She stayed.

Now Jin Ai was hiding out in the rafters of an old and decrepit warehouse, carefully avoiding hanging hooks and loose cables. It was dark and smelled of dust; the air was rigid and the occasional rat scurried about. The lights from the dirt road leading to the building were bright enough to allow her sight of the broken windows, but hardly enough to see anyone. Good thing all she needed was to hear, not see.

A light shined into the old rustic building and the rats scattered from the coyote corpse by the door. The sound of a car's engine cruising down the dirt road could be heard, and then, it stopped. Voices rang out. Car doors opened and closed.

A few minutes later the old lights of the building, most of them broken beyond repair and hanging limp from the ceiling, lit up and allowed just enough light to shine on five figures. They strode to the middle of the space. One of them was bound and gagged.

The idiot tied up had blond hair.

Jin Ai mentally cursed as she stared at the group, the one holding her being a man in his early twenties, brown hair, and tall. The others around him looked a little older with more 'edgy' haircuts and leather jackets. The brown haired one seemed to be the leader, and upon closer examination, was discovered to be the one and only Sam Winchester.

Now there's a turn of events.

The dread locked woman furrowed her brow and stared at the scene before her. "You better come out before I slit her pretty little neck!" Sam yelled into the darkness that encased a good half of the warehouse. Jin Ai sat there for a few seconds, trying to comprehend how he would know she was there- she was invisible after all and absolute master of not being detected. _How did I mess up?_ She thought angrily.

Sam pressed the blade harder against the struggling girl's neck.

"What is it that you want, Meg?" Another familiar voice asked as it moved from the shadows. On the first level that Sam and the others were, Dean Winchester walked. Jin Ai couldn't help but slowly edge further into the safety of her shadows at the scene unfolding before her.

"I don't like your tone."

"I don't like your face, demon. Let her go."

"Did you bring what I asked?" He, I guess she, asked with a smirk as they rubbed the girl's pale arm.

"I don't know what you want from me. I kill monsters, not keep them as pets. I don't have or know how to get what you're asking for."

"That's not a good answer, Winchester. I need an alp. More specifically a little Korean alp by the name of Scarecrow." Sam said with enough malice to match a snake's venom. The dark skinned girl froze. "I know you know her. I've already given you the details now I just need you to _get her_."

"How about we go with option two?"

"Do you want her to die?"

Dean pulled something out of his pocket and pointed it at Sam- an old gun. More specifically a colt. As he aimed it at the demon possessed Sam, he clicked back the small lever in the back and smirked at the demon. "Let them go, or I kill you."

"You wouldn't kill your own brother." The demon stated matter-of-factly. Beads of sweat were starting to form.

"I don't need to kill Sam to kill you. I just need to hit a limb. An arm." He said with a shrug. "'Pin the demon-killing-bullet on the demon'."

"If you killed me then my friends here would kill her instead."

"Good thing I've got a good friend with good aim, then." Dean said, and for the first time during the meeting, Jin Ai noticed that just a few yards away Bobert Singer sat with a sniper rifle at the ready. A shot rang out in the large building and one of the demons fell. Black smoke filled the air and escaped out the broken windows.

"I hate this plan." Bobby whispered, and the dreadlocked woman scowled. She reached out and glanced into his mind for what was happening, just skimming the surface to find what he was either thinking now or recently.

This plan won't work. There's devil traps all over the place, but none of them are good enough for what they plan to do.

"You're more stupid than I thought." Sam stated with a nervous chuckle as he glanced between the two guns pointed at her.

The dreadlocked woman jumped over the railing, still invisible, and controlled her weight so that she landed lightly on the ground. No one noticed. Next she heard several footsteps on the metal landing, and above her, the demons took Bobby by the arms and led him down the stairs to join Dean with guns to his head. The situation had turned for the worse, and now 'Meg' had the upper hand.

"What do you want from me, little demon?" Jin Ai asked from a splintered window, looking like a black cat wearing a hat. She licked at the back of her paw, and at the sudden appearance, everyone turned and stared with wide eyes. Dean and Bobby stared in amazement at the talking cat, completely confused. Dean glanced at the ground before looking to the strange cat. "All you had to do was call."

"You're the Scarecrow?"

"Not the original one. The first Scarecrow is in Switzerland I think."

Sam's lips pursed. "You're not Scarecrow, then?"

"I'm also called a _mara_, not alp. Though, I guess that depends on what we feel like I guess…"

"I came to offer you something, _mart._" She said with a scowl, and loosened her grip immensely on Jo to the point that she could freely run back to Dean. "My dad wants to hire you."

"Already have a job."

"Look you stupid mongrel, wait until I'm finished talking. You wouldn't be here unless-"

"I'm here because I was looking for a specific demon that has been possessing and killing families. Unfortunately I'm starting to believe that I was given false information." The cat yawned into her paw and watched Sam's eye twitch.

"What the hell does Yellow Eyes have to do with this?" Dean asked from nearby, but went ignored.

"You creatures are annoying brats, but when you utilize your abilities like you do, you can accomplish great things. You're good at gathering information and getting into peoples heads, and can mind fuck like no one else. Us demons can torture, but you… you got into my brother's head a few years back, and damn, _he_ was impressed. All the half corpses, dead-"

"Yeah, yeah. You forgot about the part that I'm a hunter. Let my little friends go and scram." She said with a wave of her paw, and behind her, her tail waved back and forth. A cattish grin befell her face as Dean, Bobby, and Jo overtook the other demons and Meg realized too late that she was caught in a devil's trap with two other demons. Bobby took out his book and started exorcising them, and as he did so, Jin Ai licked her paw once more, jumped out the window, and walked off into the night.

2.

**Random fact:** the reason I wrote this was to write a story longer than my other gay fanfic, 'A Wolf's Howl Fox's Snarl' which is about 66,000 words. (a novel is at least 50,000 words, and I only know that from doing nanowrimo XD) The only way I can imagine how I got it that long was by adding a plethora of unneeded detail each chapter. I tried adding detail to this story, but well, I could only get so much before it annoyed the crap out of me….

Jo got kidnapped. Again. Her partner vaguely wondered if she got kidnapped because of her hair or just because she was stupid. Maybe she was stupid because of the hair.

Either way, Jo was handcuffed in an empty Seven Eleven store with a demon at her side and even more roaming up and down the aisles or standing guard outside. They were in Victoria, Texas, just outside of Cuero and a good distance from a town that near no one drove by. The said kidnapping had taken place a good three hours ago and the phone call two hours. The blond had no visible bruises, cuts, or marks, and was promised to stay that way so long as she stayed quite. Learning from the past that struggling and wasting her energy was useless unless the odds were in her favor, she mostly stayed quiet, if not to make a snarky comment from time to time. The demon at her side sometimes tried to make her say something that would warrant a punch in the face; however, she kept her cool. She wouldn't be provoked by a demon.

Jin Ai had taught her better than that.

An old man, late fifties maybe and balding, walked out from a door in the back and strolled to the blond's side. A smirk graced his lips and yellow eyes gave her a quick look over. "Such a strong little fighter… it's too bad I might have to kill you."

"Azazel, is it?" A voice asked from behind him, and immediately everyone in the store and outside glanced inside with wide and confused eyes. She literally appeared out of nowhere and the demons hadn't seen her coming. Some of them had been warned of that, but they had also expected to hear, sense, or smell her. They figured those messy dreads must give off some funky smell.

Jo smirked and looked at the woman with a rejuvenated grin.

"So you've heard of me?" The yellow-eyed man asked with a playful grin as he turned his full attention to the girl. "I almost thought you wouldn't show. That would have hurt my feelings." He said with mock hurt.

"It hurt mine when you took my little pet."

"My apologies, but it was all I could do to get your attention… especially after you turned my daughter away and had her exorcised."

"Jo, are you alright?" She asked with a raised eyebrow as she gazed past the demon and to the blond. She nodded.

"Not even a scratch." Azazel added. "Okay, maybe one from the scuffle when we first brought her here, but you know how it is. She's a hunter, we're demons,"

Jin Ai looked back to the demon with a skeptical gaze. She had expected Jo to be in worse condition than she was and expected a more dramatic situation. This wasn't what she'd anticipated. No, this was worse. They hadn't hurt Jo at all, which meant that something bad was going down. It meant they _really_ wanted something from her, and didn't dare fuck with her in the process.

Or they were scared of her. Being demons she highly doubted that scenerio.

"Maggie or whatever said that you wanted me to do something."

"Follow me to my office if you will. We need to speak in private."

"How do I know that you won't hurt her now that I'm here?"

"Cameras." The demon answered easily, and pointed to one of the security cameras in the corner of the store. "We'll be able to see what's going on in here from the back room." He explained, and walked to the back of the store. He offered her a piece of candy from the shelf, but she shrugged, shook her head, and followed him to the back room.

3.

After they talked, Jin Ai walked solemnly back into the store with a satisfied demon behind her. A gun was in his hand. Jo looked skeptically at the pair, mostly the female's expression, and tried to assess what happened.

"Jin Ai? What's going on? Watch out!" She yelled as Azazel reached up and put the gun to her head. The metal was pressed against her temple. She made no move except put her shaking hands in her jean pockets.

"We made a deal, little girl. This hunter has been a thorn in my side for the past year, and after she's out of the way, I get something from her. In return I promise to not kill you." Yellow-eyes explained to the blond, and watched as she valiantly pulled against the restraints. He chuckled.

"Jo, stop."

She did.

"Take my keys, my car's in the back. Drive to the front of the store and honk to let me know that you left safely." She explained, and the demon at Jo's side started to unlock the metal cuffs. When she was free, she slowly walked towards her partner, rubbing her sore wrists while doing so and glancing back and forth from the gun to her eyes. Her head was pounding and she was afraid her heart would explode any second now. Her chest ached.

"Can you give us a minute?" Jin Ai asked the Yellow-Eyed demon, and he gave a curt nod. The demons started to clear out of the store, leaving only the three.

Jin Ai stepped forward, out of the gun's shooting range, and hugged her. Jo hugged back, gripping onto the female tightly and buried her face into her neck. "How cute." Azazel mocked, and then strolled to the back of the store with the gun spinning in his hand. He whistled the tune 'In My Time of Dying' as he walked.

"This is why you don't work heavy jobs with people you care about. Go back home to your mom, work as a waitress again or work smaller, less complicated jobs. I had fun while it lasted."

"We could get out of this. Together." Jo whispered too low for the demons to hear.

"No. This is how it should be."

"But-"

"It's stupid to die young, Jo. It's smart to die while you're dying and make use of it. With or without you they would have caught me." She spoke, and then pulled away to look into her tearful eyes. Jo tried to lean forward and kiss her lips, but Jin Ai couldn't do it. Instead she put her hands on the side of her face and placed a kiss on her forehead. Then she shoved her away and pointed to the door, the keys already in the girl's hand.

"Jin-"

"Just go, will you? I want to get this over with and you being a baby makes it kind of difficult." She insulted, and turned away. Jo stared at her a second, as if fighting her body on what to do next, when she suddenly remembered something and muttered something under her breath. "What?"

"I want to walk with you on a cloudy day in fields where the yellow grass grows knee-high… so won't you try to come? Won't you… won't you try?"

"I'm trying to be brave in front of these monsters and face death in the face. Don't tell me things l-like that." She said, and watched the blond's tear brimmed eyes finally overflow. Her lip trembled.

"I'm not leaving you. Not like this. You're not going to end it all like this! Not like this!" She yelled at the female, taking a step closer but gasping when the brunette took a step back in response.

"If I die with a brace face, maybe in Heaven we'll kiss on a mountaintop." She said, and then ran forward kissed her. Their lips melted against each other's, arms latched onto one another in attempt to meld like metal and never let go. Their tongues danced for the final time and both were overwhelmed by the heat that consumed them both, they kept latched together by the fear brewing in their bellies.

After only a few seconds Jin Ai pulled back and removed their tangled limbs from one another. The warmth and taste of Joanne Harvelle lingered on her lips. It felt like invisible nails scraping at her and tearing the skin from her body, she wanted so badly to pull her back into her arms and let the blond's smooth skin heal her invisible wounds. She barely resisted the temptation to jump back into her strong arms and kiss her till the end. Kiss her until the sun rose, kiss her until-

Jo had leapt forward again to kiss her, but stopped when she stepped back. After one last look into her watery eyes, the beautiful shade of brown that she'll never forget- she turned around, walked to the door, and pushed it open. Her legs ran on their own accord as they maneuvered around the smelly building to find the car. Salty tears were staining her face and dripping down her chin, but she was too distracted to wipe them away. She got in the front seat and put the keys in- Jin Ai had never let her drive before- and revved the old engine. The tires skid against the pavement as she drove too fast around the little store and slowed down at the front of the building, to see through the windows that the gun was against her lover's left temple again.

Their eyes met.

A shot rang out.

Blood spattered the window.

Jo turned away, pushed with all her strength on the gas pedal, and drove away.

4.

"I wish I could do that." Azazel commented from behind the register, absentmindedly playing with a knife as he leaned against the counter. "It's quite the ability."

"So what kind of jobs do you want me to do?" Jin Ai commented as she lazily browsed the candy section of the store. On the floor near her feet, a dead man with a hole through his head, bled onto the shiny surface and stained the bottom of her shoes. "Like I told you earlier that I'm a picky dreamer."

"That you are my little seed. Though, I must admit, I was surprised by your affection for the little huntress. I was under the impression that you creatures didn't have souls."

She shrugged. "They deteriorate over time."

"Ah. Well, for the time being, enjoy your new freedom. No one must know who you are or that you're working for me. As far as the world knows, you're dead. If you do talk to the little blond, or your uncle or other acquaintances, we'll kill them."

"I'm aware. So long as I can check up on Jo from time to time without her knowing, to make sure you cover your end of the bargain, we're fine. Same goes for my uncle."

The demon chuckled and looked up when one of his subordinates walked in. Azazel nodded and sighed. "Well, this has been fun and all, but I need to scram. Here's the information of a man that I need a little… persuading, to be on my end. He has unnatural and amazing powers and while he's sleeping, I need you to give him a little push in my direction. Jake Talley. I'll pay for travel expenses, of course."


	7. You give love

1.

**Random Fact:** Alps, in this version, have the ability to: shapeshift into other humans and select animals, basically read your mind, give you nightmares while you sleep by sitting on your chest at night and playing with your head, turn invisible, and do illusions. (the illusions are a little perk to the mind reading thing) They're typically pretty weak and short creatures. Female alps are supposed to be called a 'mara', but I'm too lazy and just call her an alp. They hate lemons and love milk and coffee. Their skin burns at the touch of iron or silver. An important thing to know about alps is that they need to be in contact with their tarnkappe, in other words their magical hat, or else they're powerless. A hatless alp is a powerless alp.

Another unfortunate thing about alps is that they're supposed to be bad in bed. Probably because they're so nightmare oriented. It's one of the reasons Jin Ai never slept with Jo- personally she's not that bad, but she's heard from various alps she's met over the years that humans get headaches while they get intimate and makes it rather uncomfortable. The headaches get worse the more they're into it emotionally.

Azazel kept true to his word, even until he died. The sad thing about this, though, is that her uncle died before she could tell him she was alive. He drank too much and it paid off on a hunt. Once she had confirmed the demon's death she immediately went after the monster that killed him and cut off its head. After a little torture beforehand, of course.

Contrary to what you might think of her, she may have liked Jo, but she didn't want her to see her now. No, not now. Not ever again.

Jin Ai used to be a little messed up with they were hunting together, but nowadays, she was _beyond_ messed up. Admittedly the demon didn't actually do much to get her to this point, but because she went into so many minds, got so addicted to just jumping into other people's minds so easily, that she's no longer Jin Ai. She considers herself a monster.

She doesn't look the same, mostly because she had to change her appearance so no one recognized her, but also because she could no longer hide the bags under eyes. She didn't care to even try unless she was trying to pick up someone at a bar or something. She now has pale white skin, square jaw, stunning bright green eyes, and the only thing that hasn't changed is her brown hat. Her hair isn't filled with dreads anymore, and is now long and straight.

She doesn't sleep anymore. She has a severe case of insomnia and is in someone else's nightmare 75% of the time. She's paranoid. Scared. Confident. Ashamed. Knows too much. Knows too little. Keeps your secrets. Loses your secrets. Heart broken. Torn. Too much caffeine. Too many demons, too many visions, too many scenes playing out in her head from other's memories- like Hell, rape, torture, loss, sadistic nature-

She falls down on the bed and looks at the ceiling, iPod in her hand, finger gliding across the screen to find a specific song. The only song that will make the images go away.

Make it stop.

Her abilities and natural curiosity reach an invisible hand towards the room next door, where a troubled teen tosses and turns at visions of his horrible life. One of those images flashes across her eyes.

_A beautiful red head looks over and winks. She smiles a sultry smile, you know the one I'm talking about, with those full red lips, when suddenly, a cockroach scampers out. Then another, and another, and another-_

Sweet transvestite blasted into her ears, but it didn't help. If anything it excited her inner sadistic nature and caused the invisible hand to reach further.

_A tall man with a hood over his head whispers something into her ear as he looms over her, hands on her breast-_

Another song, another song-

_Come away with me in the night  
Come away with me  
And I will write you a song_

_As the smooth song washed over her, she looked up in surprise to find the familiar blond standing there. Her brown eyes looked at her, probably in worry, but she tried to not make it too visible. She reached her hand out._

_They were in a field, Jin Ai realized after a moment, and looked around with sporadic eyes and jittery, shaking limbs. When she looked back up Jo was there, inches away from her face, a smile gracing her lips as she sang along._

Come away with me on a bus  
Come away where they can't tempt us  
With their lies

_She took my hand and put them on her hips, she put her arms around my neck. I pulled her close. I buried my face into her neck, smelling her lavender scented hair._

And I want to walk with you  
On a cloudy day  
In fields where the yellow grass grows knee-high  
So won't you try to come?  


_She felt a strong wind and shivered, yet didn't feel cold. Jo was so warm against her that she never thought she'd be cold again. Jin Ai glanced a look around them and found them on a small platform on a green mountain, so high that it's above the cloud line and deep in the blue sky._

_Come away with me and we'll kiss  
On a mountaintop  
Come away with me  
And I'll never stop loving you  
_

_Jo kissed her deeply._

_And I want to wake up with the rain  
Falling on a tin roof  
While I'm safe there in your arms  
So all I ask is for you  
To come away with me in the night  
Come away with me_

It was times like this that she wished she had. Times like this, when she was lying on the bed with her iPod on the ground, eyelids half lidded, warm body twitching, that she wished she had gone away with her.

She didn't know if she had been stupid back then, or if she was stupid now, or if all of this was stupid- maybe her feelings for Jo were stupid- but she still felt all of it. She hated it. It took all of her will not to creep into someone else's mind, to not have a strand of her consciousness slither to the next room and taste someone else's horrid dream.

She wondered, then, that if she didn't have Jo to make her feel this way, would she feel at all?

2.

**Random fact**: In this version of alp, alps souls are easily lost but not easily returned. They deteriorate the more they go into other people's minds and cause nightmares, because nightmares are like acid to them. Eventually the acid eats at them until it gets to a substance that it can't break down, and that's the shell. Their body. All that's left is a sadistic alp with nothing but your screams in their mind.

**Author's note**: We're going into Season four, y'all! Little heads up, some of the events, like last time, may be a tiny bit out of order.

After a year or so of moping around and 'playing her game', she finally had enough. After talking to an old friend, Zachary _the_ Scarecrow, she was so disturbed at the aspect of losing her soul that she decided to try and get help. Unfortunately, found out, most of them were dead. The increase of demon activity and broken seals over the past year has taken quite the toll on the number of hunters.

Luckily one of her better sources and hunters, Bobby, had survived and was still kicking. He was also touchy and a bit grumpy, but hell, so was everyone, especially the little alp. Also lucky, said hunter has a fortress made to keep demons in or out.

Guess what is similar to a demon? Yep, an alp. They're not directly related by any means, but they've got things in common, and this is one of their shared weaknesses. When Jin Ai first got to Bobby's house she could tell that he considered killing her before she could get past the porch. Like mentioned earlier, her insomnia has gotten to the point of not being able to cover it up anymore. Over the past year it's gotten worse.

No matter what skin tone she has, she's always pale now. Even as a shapeshifter she can't control her body fat and looks like a walking skeleton- or runway model, however you want to look at it. She had more cuts along her body from iron or silver, also things she can't cover up with shapeshifting, and there was a scar below her left eye. Someone had started to cut it out but failed.

I might explain why later.

"Jin Ai? Is that… is that really you?" Bobby asked as he stepped closer. She was on the porch, standing in front of the door with her hands nervously in her pockets. Her eyes automatically darted away from his. She tried to refrain from touching his mind. "You look like a zombie drug addict. I thought alps were shapeshifters for Christ sake."

"Too tired. Can't sleep. Nightmares might as well be a kind of drug." She said with short bursts of breath. The male turned his suspicion to worry and stepped back to let her into the house. She muttered a thanks and walked in, straight to the living room. "I can't sleep. Haven't slept in a year. I think. Less? More? I don't know. You have a nice house. The books make a nice floor." She said as her gaze darted to the books piled around the room, and stood next to the couch. Bobby followed in after her, not really saying anything yet and just observing. "You know I talked to my friend Zach. Yeah. He's an alp with no soul. Freak. Scary. Um, yeah. I keep thinking of Jo and I want to hunt again. We need hunters. A lot of them are dead. My uncle's dead, yeah. The reason I pretended to be dead was because I had to make a deal. Not a literal deal, more of an arrangement. Yeah. I got in people's heads and it was yummy. Not in the perverted way. Well maybe sometimes. No. Yes. I can't remember. Anyway. Yeah. Nightmares are yummy. We need hunters. Do you have any coffee?" She asked, sitting down at one point, and at another point jumping when she realized that she wasn't standing anymore. "Do I sound like a druggie?"

"Yes." Bobby said truthfully, and sat on a wooden chair across from her. "You really do need some sleep. Your eyes are redder than a tomato."

"Really? I haven't looked at them lately. They're green right now, right? Or blue? I don't know. I change them every so often because I get bored. No. I change them because I don't want to get caught. No. I don't want people to recognize me. Yeah. Mostly Jo. Have you seen Jo? Isn't she pretty?"

"So you think you'll be able to sleep in the hold downstairs?"

"I don't know. Maybe? A little? If anything it'll keep my mind from wandering. Literally. It's hard not to wander into yours and bring up your ex wife. Oh! Sorry sorry. It's yummy but I should stay away. I mean, no, wait, no. Not yummy. Bad. Do you have any coffee?"

"I have a bed set up for you. How long do you want to spend down there?"

"I don't know. Couple days? I don't want to be a burden. I don't know what else to do. I'm going insane. It's fun but it's scary. Scary but fun. They're the same. I-"

"Come on." He said as he stood, and the young girl, standing at three feet tall right now, hopped to her feet and skipped after him. She tripped over her feet a couple times but for the most part kept herself up. "You used to be such a calm and great hunter. It's hard to believe this is what you've turned into."

"I thought I had it under control. I didn't. Once I get a hold on it it's easier to manage. It helps to go to Maine and hunt the spiders. I scare spiders. Did I tell you that? I kill spiders with my mind. No, no. I kill them _in_ my mind, send the bastards mental images of me killing them, momentarily distract them with that, then BOOM_!_" She yelled and then giggled, her giggles gaining in strength and within seconds turned into the creepiest sounds Bobby had ever heard. The thing that freaked him out most was that it stopped so abruptly afterwards.

"If you need anything, holler. I should be able to hear you from upstairs. I'll bring you food each day, but I'm not promising that it'll be good."

"Okie doke artichoke." She sang as she skipped through the huge metal door and jumped onto the cot. As the door swung closed, her body's natural hum softened and slowed dramatically. When Bobby's mind was out of her reach and the iron, salt, and other demon withholding relics were in the way, she stopped.

Her body fell limp and collapsed onto the sheets. Her leg and arm slung over the side.

Her mind hummed and drilled inside her head for a few minutes, but after it settled with nothing to munch on, nothing to occupy its time with, nothing to distract it-

It turned off.

3.

She started to have hallucinations, which somehow didn't surprise her. It also didn't surprise her who she hallucinated about.

What did surprise her was that the song changed.

"Don't know why you didn't come," Jo sang, altering one of the words to fit how Jin Ai thought she felt. She knew she felt betrayed. She knew that what she had done was stupid, selfish, stupid- "Don't know why you still won't come," She sang as she came closer and nibbled on her ear. In real life, the nibbling probably wouldn't be that attractive, but in Jin Ai's mind right now, it's the hottest thing since the disco.

Jo's lips against her ear, whispering a song, arms around her neck and Jin Ai's on her hips. They sway to the song she sings. She kisses her neck. Her ear burns at the lips gracing her skin and tongue that glides from her lobe to her jaw, then to her cheek, then to her lips. The imaginary saliva cools on her skin and makes her shiver.

And then, in the same minute, they're on the small cot, where she's sleeping. They're laying there in each other's arms. Jin Ai's staring at her. She's still singing "Don't know why you didn't come" to her, and it makes her stomach quench uncomfortably.

And then it's gone and she's replaced by images of a woman in a white dress being stabbed by her husband. Blood is everywhere, there's a knife in her hand, there's a demon laughing maniacally at her.

She falls off the cot and lands on her shoulder at a weird angle. Bobby rushes to her side and asks if she's okay. She asked how long she's been asleep, and he says a few hours.

It's been two days, now. Bobby comes in with food from time to time and wakes her up. She calls him a bastard every so often, but always apologizes. He says that he wishes that a certain other demon-detoxing idiot would be as polite. Apparently the person he talked about was insane and… well… wasn't as polite as her.

She ate her food while he was there so that she wouldn't fall asleep when he left. Sometimes they talked, sometimes they played a game, sometimes he just brought a book with him and did some research while she ate. And when he left, she was in heaven again with her own personal angel.

4.

When she's not dreaming of a certain blond, she's dreaming of dead things and horrid images that she'd rather forget. After about a week of being there the nightmares became fewer and fewer, and more about Jo or Jay, and sometimes her parents.

5.

Bobby did something that she had specifically asked him not to do- tell Jo that she was alive. From what she could gather, she didn't believe him at first, but when he told her that Jin Ai had been singing 'Come Away With Me' almost everyday, she broke down crying and had to give the phone to her mom.

It had been two and a half weeks now and she felt a hell of a lot better, but she didn't want to see Jo yet. She didn't want to see her at all, ever, really. She was a bundle of nerves and felt like anything could tip her over the edge. That morning she had yelled at her tongue and elbow for not being able to kiss and make up after an argument they had had. She can't imagine what will happen when she sees _Jo_, the girl she's been fantasizing about for the past two years.

_Shit_.

The blond arrived the next day, and by then, Jin Ai had retained most of her weight back and made her hair into tens of small little braids. Bobby loaned her some Native American beads supposed to ward away evil thoughts and dreams, and made her promise several times not to lose them, or else he'll wring her neck. He didn't mean it, but it was the sentiment that counted.

She got her skin tone and face back to the original shape and made herself taller, back to her regular 5'6" height. Not too tall but not too short.

She was going to see Jo.

She was going to see Joanne Harvelle after all this time, and she had no idea what was going to happen.

_Shit._

6.

It was awkward.

"… hey…" The blond said meekly. She stood awkwardly with her arms crossed and feet crossed. They shifted and changed every few seconds. She drummed her fingers full on against her arm.

"Hey." Jin Ai said, surprisingly much calmer than earlier. At the sight of the woman she hadn't seen in over a year, it seemed like all of her cells had died of a heart attack and now sluggishly moved through her body like zombies from a bad horror movie. She stood, calm, ready, gaze set on Jo's face. It didn't look much different. Maybe a little thinner. There was a small scar on her cheek. "How have you been?"

"Good…. I've been hunting with my mom."

"Good, good."

"You?"

"Good."

"That's good." She said with a weak smile, and glanced up at the sky, to Jin Ai, then back up at the sky. It was sunny. They both shifted uncomfortably. "So… you've been alive this entire time?"

"Yeah."

"Why didn't you… why didn't you…" She looked up at the familiar brown eyes, hoping that she could finish her sentence for her, or understand what she was asking. She choked on her own words. Her eyes didn't tear up, but the other female could tell that she wanted them to.

"At first it was because Azazel threatened to kill you. Then it was because I didn't want you to see what I was becoming."

"What were you becoming?"

"A demon."

"… but you're not anymore?"

"I was detoxing in Bobby's basement."

"Ah…."

"Jo?"

"Yes?"

"Did you… did you ever think of me?"

"Everyday. I learned so much from you." She said quickly, and the other female nodded.

"I know that I always said I didn't like you that way, but… you were the only thing that kept me going. Jay died, so, the only thing that kept me human was thinking of you."

"… a lot has changed over the past year."

"I know."

"I miss you."

"I miss you too."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

"Kiss me."

"Gladly."


	8. Don't know why I didn't come

1.

She caught whiff of a certain vampire in March of 2009. Cory Desmark, the creature that killed her parents, had reared its ugly head, probably because it thought both she and her uncle were dead.

Unlike a couple years ago when she would invalidate Jo's existence on a trip and refuse to let her go on a dangerous hunt, she invited her to come. For the most part ever since they had been reunited, they kept hunts and get-togethers separate, but every so often they'd do a hunt together. For the most part she hunted with her mother and Jin Ai hunted alone. It was just easier.

When she told her about the trail she'd found, Jo was gun hoe about going; but when her mom got involved she wasn't sure. Her mother had made it her business as of late to latch herself onto her daughter for hunts, and although Jo had become a much better hunter, she was still green. A mother will always worry over her child.

Under normal circumstances Jin Ai would be fine with bringing her mother along too- hell, she's actually a damn good hunter- but bringing too many hunters to one place would cause suspicion and scare him off. "It won't work with three of us, Ellen, I'm sorry. If it was just Jo I can manage, but three people will be too risky. I can't afford to have him go into hiding again."

"Well I'm not letting my daughter go gallabanting off to hunt a vampire with someone to, although I'm sure you're experienced, hasn't been able to kill him for ten years. Vampires are dangerous, and this one sounds smart." Ellen spoke in a hushed tone at the table, her daughter giving her an annoyed glare.

"Mom-"

"Jo, vampires are dangerous, not joking. They're insanely fast, strong, and you have to kill them by chopping off their heads. I can barely do that when I'm invisible." Jin Ai cut in. "In fact, I probably shouldn't go alone. If I can't take you I'll probably ask one of the Winchesters to help."

"Not a Winchester." Ellen said quickly, and the dreadlocked woman (yes, she got them back) quirked an eyebrow at her. "They've been getting a little too popular over the past couple years. You'd be safer bringing an entire circus."

"True, but they're good hunters and youngest I know. Best in shape for this specific vamp. I can always alter their looks if needed be." She said easily, and began sipping at her coffee again.

"What happened to us being _partners_?" Jo asked suddenly with a glare. "What the hell happened to equal input? Don't I have a say?"

"You already forgot our agreement over hunts?" Jin Ai asked as she quirked her brow again. "I'm in charge of the hunt. I listen to what you say but I make the final call, just like you do when it's your hunt." She explained, and the blond stuck her tongue out at her. Jin Ai in return threw a straw at her and caused her to squeak.

"What if you just let the Winchesters take care of it?" Ellen asked.

"Not enough info. Like you said, they're too popular, and if they tried to investigate they'd kill the trail. I, on the other hand, can gather information without being caught."

"You shouldn't fight it." Jo said, and leaned back to take a sip of her drink. "Gather information and then have the Winchesters do it. Your body has gotten weaker over the past couple years and invisible or not it would be able to smell you." The blond said staring her straight and in the eye. Jin Ai mentally cursed.

"I'm strong enough."

"No you're not. You'll get yourself killed."

"No I won't. I hunted vampires for _years_."

"I'm sorry," Ellen started from her seat. "But I agree with Jo. I know it's the one that killed your parents but it's not worth getting yourself killed. You even said yourself that you used to hunt with other hunters whenever you went after vampires."

The blonds were ganging up on her. With a disdained look on her face and eyes darting away from their faces, she leaned back in her chair, arms crossed, and silently contemplated.

"I already lost you once and I won't lose you again. Have Dean and Sam take the case." Jo concluded as she stared at her girlfriend and studied her expression. She watched her lip twitch up and down, and for once wished that she could read her mind. Suddenly Jin Ai turned back to them with a smile on her face.

"Alright." She said, a mischievous glint shining maliciously in her eye, and a stray swirl of gold began to swim in her eyes.

2.

**Random Fact**: Rap music is awesome.

The pair spent the night together that night. They were cuddled inside Jo's little apartment on the old and faded couch, covered in blankets and watching TV. They were watching the older hunter's favorite movie- _Nightmare on Elm Street_. Whenever Freddy Kruger appeared, or one of the girls screamed, she would smile and giggle maniacally. It was during one of the more calmer parts of the movie now, when the main female character was doing research on traps and self defense, that Jo looked over at the content woman with a curious glance.

"Jin?" She whispered, and the familiar brown eyes that sent her stomach into a flurry of tickled bird feathers looked at her.

"Hm?"

"You're not going to go after him, right? Just get the information and let the Winchesters handle it?" She asked with her lower lip pouting. The other female rolled her eyes and shifted to a slightly more comfortable position. The raggedy old blanket around them had holes in it, not much large than a quarter, so they didn't worry about it, but Jo's ankle was exposed to the cold and no matter what angle she tilted it at, it was always exposed to the cold air. She stared at her partner in hopes to distract herself from the cold.

She leaned in close, brown eyes meeting brown, and a golden glint danced across the alp's eyes again. The blond stared in amazement as she watched the glint dance across her eyes like a fish in a pond. Jin Ai pressed her lips against the blond's for a brief second, pulled away, and then pulled a purple tulip from under the covers. Confused, the blond took it from her and looked at the delicate flower. "You said you like tulips a while back."

"Where did you get this?"

"Flower shop."

"No I mean, where the hell did you hide it? Did you pull it out of your ass?"

"It's a secret." The alp said with a wide impish grin, and let out a short girly scream when she was attacked. Her back made contact with the cushions of the couch, her body bounced up and down as she settled and a beautiful woman hovered over her.

"Promise me you'll stay safe?"

"I promise, my little koi fish."

3.

**Author's Note**: Little tip to my little readers out there- don't get too caught up in the timing of things.

She never called the Winchesters, and she sure as hell didn't tell Jo about it. She loved her, but there were some things she had to do on her own.

In fact, she's had to do a lot of things alone over the years. That was the point, wasn't it? She spent the past ten or so years without her parents and only her uncle for support, without any real help, so shouldn't she end the era of having no help by killing the thing that started it by herself? She would start the new era of having help and doing things with her new family after this creature was dead.

Once she killed it, everything would be fine. Everything would be dandy. Her life would be complete.

_Kill it, kill it. Revenge, revenge._ A voice in her head chanted over and over as she cruised down the road. Her fingers tapped in time with it. _Kill the demon. Kill the beast. Kill the creature that killed your parents. Kill it._ "I'm going to." She said out loud at some point. "I'm going to kill the vampire. I'm going to end it all."

She looked to the radio again, her hand hovering over the dial. Over the years she'd trained herself not to turn the radio on, since it was a rule when Jo was in the car- but when she realized she was alone, she reached for it and blasted the tunes.

"_And I'm wanted… dead or alive!" _A song from Bon Jovi played, blasting from her speakers and making the car vibrate as she drove down the road, fingers tapping against the wheel.

4.

It didn't take her long to steal wisps of people's thoughts and string together where the vampire was and what he looked like. Goose bumps gathered along her skin and she couldn't help but smile. Now she wait sitting, in her car, outside of the dark abandoned building, anticipating her moves. The blade that would kill the vampire was in the passenger seat. Her hand stroked it from time to time as she sat there, staring at the building, letting her mind wander and find exactly where the creature was.

She took her time. The little voice in her head chanted as she waited and got louder as she got closer, but she never let her guard down in the process or forget her goals.

There were several vampires hiding out in the building and only one of them needed to be killed. If she had time, _maybe_, she'd get to the rest. She wasn't going to be reckless like Jo thought she was, she wasn't going to prove her right. Jin Ai is the goddamn knight in shining armor in this story.

She looked at her phone one last time.

_Not too late to call for back up…_ another voice told her, perhaps the more reasonable one. She would have none of that.

Her hand reached for the door before she made a conscious effort of it and she exited the vehicle, blade in hand, body becoming invisible to the world as the door came to a close. Her red scarf was the last thing to be seen on her. The street reeked of stale Chinese food and weird hobos lingering around the sides of the street. Her brown eyes, a golden fish still swimming in the depths of them, gazed at the building and located the entrance.

She started walking.

4.5

Ellen looked at her daughter again for the umpteenth time, her brown eyes staring at the young woman with uncertainty and amazement. She watched the young blond ready the shotgun in her hands and expertly load it, cock it, aim, and then put it back on safety and put it back on her back. She asked her, again, if she knew what she was doing. "How do you know that she won't call the Winchesters after all? Are you sure that you don't want Jin Ai to come along?"

"She won't call them. She never listens to me." Jo said curtly, and paused to face her mother. "I want her to be here, but she wants that vampire dead. Revenge is more important than me."

"Is going with the Winchesters more important than her?" Ellen asked her, and the blond looked away for a moment.

"She's not human. They are." She said after a moment, locked eyes with her mother one last time, and went back to talk with Dean about the plan.

Her mother watched her, wondering whether her daughter was making a good decision or not.

She reached for her phone and dialed a familiar number.

5.

It was easy enough to get past the slumbering vampires and bloodied bodies without being detected. Being an alp really had its perks. She adjusted her weight so that she was incredibly light, her mind reading illusion abilities took her scent away, and if anyone opened their eyes they saw nothing.

It was working so well, in fact, that she got to the vampire she was after with no trouble at all. In fact, she was there now. Unsheathing the blade, the metal glinting in the light and causing the sadistic grin to spread across her face. She took aim, got ready to cut off the vampire's head, when she froze and realized something.

Her phone wasn't on vibrate. Kesha sang into the darkness and although she frantically tried to turn off the electrical device, it was too late. When the vampires _realized_ there was someone there, that it wasn't just a fleeting scent from outside or a rat skittering around, they started to look for her. The vampire in front of her was about to open his eyes and see her standing there, when she tried to quickly rid him of his head and slice his pretty little neck.

Didn't quite work out that way.

Another vampire came along and punched her side, sending her flying down the hallway and skidding across the tile floor. She groaned as she gripped the area he'd punched, and looked up to see three vampires towering over her. Blood stains covered their clothing.

She took a deep breath and calmed down. A deep knot formed in the pit of her stomach, but she ignored it. A cold, numb feeling crept up her limbs and it felt like the cold hand of death was gripping her heart. As one of the deadly creatures reached forward to take a bite out of her, her body dispersed into a cloudy mist and surrounded them.

They smelled her everywhere, and even as they swiped at her, their confused little brains couldn't understand or figure out how to defeat her- all the while she started chopping off their heads.

"_Look, Jin, Jo wanted to get you away so that you wouldn't come with us. We're helping the Winchesters with something that is dangerous and could get us all killed."_

The mist woman floated down the halls as more vampires came to inspect what had entered the building. As more and more discovered the bodies, the more sounds erupted through the halls, and the more vampires woke up.

"_I think you should forget about the vampire and come help us. Jo says… well, I think she doesn't want you here because she doesn't want you to get hurt. Like you always want to keep her away to keep her safe. I don't like you that much, but you have kept my daughter safe all this time and I know that you care about each other."_

She looked up and down the halls, her mind spread so thinly throughout the large building that she could barely comprehend where her body actually was. When all of the vampires, a total of about thirty, were dead, she finally tried to bring her body back to one form again.

The tired and severely wounded alp stumbled out of the old building, coughing up blood and only taking a few steps before collapsing to the ground.

"_I think you should help us. It could be dangerous and we need all the help we can get."_

Jin Ai laid there a moment unmoving, afraid to breathe or move and unleash the unbearable pain she knew would come.

When she drew in a sharp intake of breath, she felt the jabs of pain start stinging her body. The cold grip of death, the bones enlacing around the small organ and squeezing tightly, tried to yank her vital organ out. Pieces of skin were now missing from when she tried to piece her body back together. It had been a myth, a legend in her kind; that they could physically make their bodies turn into a mist and come back to their original form. It had happened in the olden days, and no matter how hard she or other alps of her time had tried, they couldn't do it.

Not successfully, anyway. Alps in the olden days were seen disappearing into a mist by their victims all the time, and they'd reappear as a whole on the other side of a door they'd slid under.

She coughed and curled up into a ball, holding her midsection and starting to cry from the pain. She got her phone out and realized she had missed two calls. She dialed her voice mail box and, shakily, pressed the plastic device to her ear. The cold air nipped at her skin like freezing mosquitoes, and the tips of her fingers and toes were becoming numb.

After listening to Ellen's message, she went to the next one. Her mind started to wander, a little, but she forced it to focus on the voice in the phone.

"_I… I love you." Jo spoke into the phone, blood continuing to pour from her injury. She coughed into the phone as the blood filled her lungs, and her mother by her side tried to keep the phone to her ear. Her hand was shaking. "I… I'm sorry you couldn't be the knight you wanted to be. I wanted you… I… I'm sorry… I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough… but I hope…" She coughed again. "It's not the age you die, it's how you die when you're… already dying..."_

The alp thought back to when she had said something along those lines to Jo, back when she had 'died'. Jin Ai looked at the ground she lay against, surprised at how much blood was pooling around her. In the reflection she could see the building she had been watching for an hour, and it suddenly occurred to her that she could have climbed the fire escape to the third story instead of walking down the halls and consequently wasting time.

"_You've saved me… so many times… I thought… I thought you were just a monster… you're not… I'm sorry I… I should have told you. I should have…"_

"_Honey, save your energy."_

"_No, I have to tell her!" She went into another fit of coughing, but brought her mouth to the phone again. "I shouldn't have lied to you! I should… I'm not as strong as you. But… I'll be dying for a cause… When I die you have to promise that you won't die… that you… you won't lose your soul, like The Scarecrow… or…" She went into another fit of coughing, and after a few seconds and a gargled 'I love you', the line went dead._

_Silence._

_Press '7' if you want to delete this message. Press '9' if you want to replay. Press…_


End file.
